The Green Sharingan
by ShadowLord9
Summary: Naruto xover. Danny is glad to get some rest when school gets out for the summer, but his summer plans are ruined when Vlad tells the town that the ghost boy is half human, and who's this new ghost that's been telling him that Danny's his new master?
1. Chapter 1

***Chapter edited on August 12, 2010.**

Hello peoples! I FINALLY have this story up! This is my first fanfic on but flames are completely welcome. Just a little note for ghostboy814, that fic I talked a little about in my review for the first chapter of Nine Tailed Ghost, well here it is! In case you haven't looked at my profile, I was formerly known as Anonimous. Well, enough with this stupid author's note! On with the story!

Note: I realize that the characters from Naruto in this fic only appeared really early in the series.

Note: Haku will not be wearing his mask at all throughout this fic, because since he died with it off, and it was shattered somewhere else on the bridge at the time anyway, he won't have it as a ghost.

Note: In the episode summary for TUE on it said that Danny was 15. So, since this takes place one year after Reality Trip, he is 16. Phantom Planet does not apply to this fic. However, every other episode in the third season does.

Thoughts are in _italics._

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or Naruto. Oh, but if I did…

Chapter one: Summer is Here!

The bell finally rang, signaling that school had ended for the summer. Moments later, all the students of Casper High joyously ran out of the building, glad that the school year had finally ended.

Danny Fenton, along with his two closest friends, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley, was one of the first people out of the building.

"Finally! I thought that bell would never ring!" Tucker exclaimed, taking a deep breath of fresh air. However, he noticed Danny was walking beside him with his hands in his pockets and staring at the ground with a look of concentration on his face. "Dude, aren't you glad that summer's here?"

This broke Danny out of his trance. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I am. It's just, I've been thinking, what if my secret does get out again, and this time there's no way to reverse it? I keep thinking about what the Guys in White said to me the minute they found out last summer." He then puffed up his chest and made his voice sound deeper. "You're coming in for questioning." He shifted his voice a little. "And experiments. Lots and lots of really _painful_ experiments." He sighed and slumped his shoulders.

Sam tried to comfort him. "Don't worry about it Danny. It all turned out all right last summer, didn't it? You'll be fine." She put a hand on his shoulder.

Danny gave her a small smile. "Thanks Sam. But I still can't shake this bad feeling I have in the back of my mind."

Tucker picked this moment to say something. "Well, if anything bad does happen, we'll be right there with you man." Suddenly, Tucker cringed, remembering something. "Uh, actually, Danny, you and Sam will have to handle this one alone. My mom and dad are dragging me to Colorado to visit some relatives all summer... I guess I never told you... I'm sorry."

"It's OK, Tuck. Sam and I could probably handle it, along with a little help from Jazz." Danny told him reassuringly.

The next few minutes of walking passed in silence. Danny suddenly looked up sharply from the pavement he was once again staring at, and asked Tucker, alarmed, "What _part _of Colorado, exactly?"

Tucker replied, "Relax, dude. It's nowhere near the mountains. I'll be completely safe from Vlad."

"OK, but just to be on the safe side-" Danny reached into his backpack and pulled out a Specter Deflector and handed it to him. "-here."

As Danny put his book bag back on his shoulders, Sam turned her head toward him and asked, "So, when _are_ you leaving anyway?"

"Day after tomorrow. Why?"

"Just wondering."

By this time, the three of them had reached Sam's house. After the two boys told Sam they'd see her tomorrow, she disappeared into her house. Danny and Tucker kept walking in silence until they reached Danny's house.

As he walked up the front steps of his house, Danny turned and said, "Well, uh, see ya tomorrow, then?"

"See ya." He waved his hand slightly, not looking back.

Tucker kept walking down the street a short distance and turned a corner. Danny watched until he was out of sight. _I really hope Vlad doesn't know about this…_ He thought as he went into his house. He once again felt that feeling of dread in the back of his mind. _This summer isn't going to be like last year. _He tried to convince himself.

But in the back of his mind, he knew he was wrong.

* * *

Phew, there's the first chapter. I'll try to get the next chapter up by Friday. Please, review! The little blue button is calling you…


	2. Chapter 2

Well, here's the second chapter. Sorry 'bout the last chapter being so short. This one's longer.

Disclaimer: I don't own DP, Naruto, or Runescape, which is where I got the idea of the Ghost Zone currency, ecto-tokens.

Thoughts are in _italics_.

Chapter Two: Haku

Somewhere, in the depths of the Ghost Zone, a ghost stood against the corner of an old and crumbling building, cautiously looking over his shoulder down the street he had come down. About two blocks down, a group of Walker's guards were charging down the street away from him, the leader barking orders at the other men, such as "He went this way!" or "Quickly! We're not losing him this time!"

_Those dumb fools. They're heading in the opposite direction, chasing my water clone. _Haku thought to himself, letting his guard down, knowing he lost them. When he could no longer hear the guards thundering down the streets, he moved from his hiding place and started walking toward a more populated area of the city.

Haku had changed in the seventeen years he had spent in the Ghost Zone. His once long, neat hair had been cut short to about an inch above shoulder level and was a tangled mess. He was still wearing the same clothes he had died in. Although they had become quite a bit ragged and torn over the years, they were still serviceable by his standards. He also had managed to acquire a dark blue hooded cloak with closeable pockets on the inside flaps, which also had become a bit torn and tattered from its years in his possession. The hood of his cloak, which he had pulled over his head earlier, covered up his headband with the Village Hidden in the Mist insignia on it.

A Ghost Zone city isn't too different from a real world city. Although they're usually just centers of trade for ghosts, they were also places where the many ghosts without lairs could live or stay and rest before going back to the real world. Although many ghosts just go there to buy and sell various items.

Haku kept walking through the winding streets until he came to a small abandoned warehouse. All the windows and doors were partially boarded up, but he ducked into the alleyway next to the building and seemingly walked through the wall of the warehouse. Once inside, the gaping hole in the wall was clearly visible.

_Concealing jutsu can be very useful sometimes._ Haku strolled over to the far corner of the large room, and opened a rather well hidden trapdoor that led down a small flight of stairs to what was once the boiler room of the old warehouse.

_Let's see what I made this time…_ Haku sat down in the middle of the small, dimly lit boiler room and took a few coins out of the pockets behind the folds of his cloak. He quickly counted them, a small smile crossing his face. _Fifty-three ecto-tokens. Not bad, but I could've gotten more if those fools hadn't caught me stealing again._ For the years he'd been in the Ghost Zone, Haku had mainly made money by pick pocketing, and had quite a few run ins with Walker's guards.

Although most of the Ghost Zone used real world money, there were still some older sections that still manufactured and used ecto-tokens, metal that was infused with ectoplasmic energy and stamped into coins. One ecto-token is about a dollar, so although most of the Ghost Zone doesn't use them, the coins are still accepted throughout the entire zone.

Haku pulled out a large brown leather pouch from inside his robe-like shirt and loosened the drawstring, revealing about 100 of the slightly glowing ecto-tokens of various colors. He dropped the amount he just made into the pouch, and then dumped the contents of the sack onto the concrete floor. The green, red, and blue coins all glowed eerily on the floor. Haku started to sort them all by amount and color: the 1's were a vibrant neon green, the 5's were more a plant green, and the 10's were a deep emerald. The 20's were a kind of pinkish red, while the 50's were a bright ruby, and his only two 100's were both an electric blue.

_Hmm… 800 right on the spot. More than I've had in a long time_. He scooped up the coins off the floor, closed the drawstring, and slipped the pouch back into his outer shirt.

Contrary to what a person might think, Haku had actually bought the cloak he wore from a merchant ghost in another city, eating up most of his savings at the time, but that cloak was worth it. It was made of thick, durable wool that had been dyed to the dark blue color it still was. The brooch for it was a simple metal disk, but it glowed with a faint energy. There were eight closeable pockets on the inside of the cloak, four on each side, three of which he used to hold the various money pouches he came across, or, like today, just loose coins in a pocket.

The last pocket he used to hold a shrunken scroll map of the Ghost Zone, which the ghost he bought it from said was made from the Infimap itself, because it displayed the entire Ghost Zone and self-updated itself constantly. However it couldn't take you wherever you wanted; you'd have to get there yourself. Still, despite the map's rarity, the idiot ghost that Haku had bought it off of had no idea how much it was really worth, since he had just stolen it and was trying to sell it for some quick cash. Since the scroll was too long to fit in his pocket, and he couldn't move easily when he put it in his robe-like shirt, he shrunk it with a transformation jutsu and stored it in his forth cloak pocket.

_I think it's time to leave this city. Walker's goons are starting to corner me. I should move on._ True, Haku wasn't quite a wanted ghost, but he would be in a lot of trouble if he were ever caught. _As if I ever would be caught, anyway. _He gave a tiny chuckle as he got up and headed for the small flight of stairs at the other end of the room.

_They always seem to fall for my 'water clone behind a corner' trick. _He opened the trapdoor and stepped into the eerie green light of the Ghost Zone sky streaming through the boarded up windows.Haku stepped through the hole in the wall and undid the concealing jutsu, once more making the hole visible from the outside. Making sure the map was safe in his pocket, and that his pouch of ecto-tokens was securely in his shirt, Haku took flight out into the Ghost Zone, his cloak billowing behind him like a cape.

_Of course, if they ever _do_ corner me, I could always just fight my way through them… _

Haku continued flying until he eventually passed Clockwork's tower. He halted midair, staring at the tower. _What _is_ that?_ He wondered, seeing the giant pendulum swinging back and forth on the tower, and the various gears sticking out of the sides. He took the map out of his cloak pocket, brought it back to its original size, and found where he was on the map. _Hmm… Here it is. 'Clockwork's tower: The lair of Clockwork, the ghost of time.' Well, if he's the ghost of time, maybe he'll know whom Zabuza was reincarnated into. Even in the afterlife, I shall remain loyal to you, master! Whoever you may be now!_

_

* * *

_Well, there's chapter two for ya.


	3. Chapter 3

***Chapter edited August 12, 2010.**

I'm SO sorry I took a week to update! I've just been really busy trying to finish up my summer vacation homework before school starts Tuesday, among other things. Well, here's chapter three.

Disclaimer: I don't own DP, Naruto, or the Evil Overlord List.

Thoughts are in _italics._

Chapter Three: Revealed

Danny slammed into the ground, glaring up at Skulker. He slowly rose to his feet and jumped into the air again, regaining his previous altitude.

"It seems you're losing your touch, ghost child." Even though they had been fighting for at least two hours, Skulker never seemed to tire at all, while Danny was steadily becoming more and more exhausted.

"Yeah, well, you'd be losing your touch too if you didn't have an infinite power source in the clunky tin can you call an exoskeleton!" Danny spat, dodging another round of ectoblasts.

Skulker seemed to forget the fight for a second, and stopped midair. Standing up strait, he bragged, "Impressed? It's a special upgrade I di-" He was thankfully cut off by a powerful ectoblast coming from Danny. Before he could even think, Danny had sucked him in the Fenton Thermos, capped it, and was flying away to find somewhere to change back. _One ghost fight of the summer down, a million to go._

Suddenly, a familliar blue blast from an ecto-gun nailed Danny in the back, sending him crashing to the ground, rolling on his side down the road before coming to a complete stop. He looked up just in time to see Operative K and O of the Guys in White sprinting down the road toward him, ecto-guns blazing.

"Don't you two know when to give up?" Danny quickly rose to his feet, narrowly missing another blast. "You've obviously failed to catch me for the last year! What makes you think today'll be any different?" He taunted, continuing to evade the GIW agent's constant attacks, quickly becoming airborne again.

"_Because_, Phantom," Op. O began as the two pulled out their jetpacks and also became airborne, a sly and maniacal smile crossing his face as he brandished his weapon. "we know you're half human!"

At this, Danny froze in midair, his eyes going wide. His only sign of movement was the constant bobbing up and down from hovering in the air. _How could they know? Did they do a DNA test or something? Or did one of my enemies rat me out? Personally, I'm leaning toward the latter... _His mind was racing, and it was all he could do to hold his arms up automatically to protect himself when he saw another oncoming shot.

The blast knocked Danny out of his shocked state, but it also knocked him out of the sky. He landed on his back, kicking up some asphalt in the process. Danny slowly stood up; all the while glaring at the two operatives who landed only yards away.

"You see," Op. K was talking this time. "we received a tip from an anonymous ghost that had told us you were half human."

This was Danny's chance to fool them. Upon hearing this, Danny burst out in fake laughter. "And what evidence do you have to support that theory?" He questioned, raising his eyebrow.

Unfortunately, the GIW agents could tell Danny was just stalling. "True, we also laughed at first, but then-" Op. K pulled out a Ghost Zone wanted poster with Danny's face on it from under his suit and held it out to him. "-he gave us this." The bottom portion of the poster read:

**Danny Phantom****  
Half Ghost, Half Human Hybrid  
Reward: $4 million **

Danny glared at the two GIW agents. _Man I hate evidence. ...Do I really have a $4 million bounty on my head? Who cares, I gotta get out of here! I need to give 'em the slip._

Op. O continued. "Also, we did a few tests on your blood sample that we managed to get, and found flecks of _red human blood._ That confirmed it."

"So, Ghost Boy, are you going to come quietly and let us take you in for questioning and experiments, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?"

Instead of an answer, Danny made his eyes go wide in mock surprise as he pointed behind them. "LOOK OUT!"

It worked. The two agents quickly turned around and, seeing nothing, Op. K said, "Hey, wait a minute, there's nothing th-" he was cut off by both of them being shot in the back with an ecto blast from Danny.

As Danny flew off invisibly, he called back, "Number 178 of the Evil Overlord List!"

Danny kept flying until he came to an alleyway a few blocks off. He ducked behind a dumpster and changed back. He leaned against it, suddenly exhausted from his hours of fighting._ Too bad Sam started her summer job today, and Tucker had to leave early on his family's trip today for some reason. _He started his walk back toward his house. _Maybe I should get a job, too. Although, I'd probably get fired pretty fast, seeing as how I would have to run out all the time to fight ghosts._ Danny had finally reached his house. Looking up at the Op Center and the gigantic neon sign that read 'Fenton Works',he sighed. _Ah well, at least it would give me something to do, no matter how short it would last…_

* * *

Haku was walking through the outskirts of Amity Park, taking in his new surroundings. Or, rather, walking around aimlessly to try and memorize the basic layout of the city, like he had done with every Ghost Zone city he had gone to.

_It's amazing how this world's cities are the ones that Ghost Zone cities are based off of the most. True, the Ghost Zone has many natural entrances that lead to parallel universes like the one I came from, as well as this particular dimension, but since this world is the one that's somewhat most technologically advanced; it is therefore the one most directly linked to the Ghost Zone. Well, technically they're all equally connected to each other, but only this world has artificial portals that are never close permanently. Well, unless they get destroyed or something, of course. _Haku made a sound that somewhat resembled a chuckle. _It's amazing what kinds of conversations you overhear when you're out in the streets pick pocketing. _True, it did take him a few years to wrap his head around the concept, but it all seemed to make sense eventually..._  
_

Suddenly, the whine of an ecto-gun charging up was heard behind Haku. The voice of a GIW operative rang through the air. "Freeze ghost!"

Haku slowly turned his head around until he could see the agent. Since the hood of his cloak was down, it also made the headband visible. Seeing Haku's emotionless stare, the operative was taken aback, realizing that his stare said something along the lines of '_you just made a big mistake stopping me.'_ Before he knew what happened, Haku had him in a headlock with his right arm, his one kunai in hand, trained on the agent's throat, while his left hand held the ecto-gun at his side. _It was like he didn't even move… _The GIW operative thought, a stunned look on his face. _I've dealt with ninja ghosts before, but him… He's… _He gulped._ Ghost or not, he never was human!_

"Hmm, an Operative of the Guys in White? I expected the merciless hunters the Ghost Zone thinks you are. Not a weakling like _you_." Haku insulted, venom dripping off every word. "Someone ranked as high as you easily could have a $1 million bounty on their head. I expected better."

"I've heard enough! Now _let me go _so I can take you into custody!" He ordered daringly.

To this, Haku laughed manically. "Only Zabuza ever commanded _me_ like that."

That sentence made the man's blood run cold. _Z- Zabuza? He served ZABUZA? _His heart rate increased dangerously. He had heard about Zabuza through some ghosts he'd interrogated once. _I'm at the mercy of a ghost that serves a merciless killer. _

"But you? You're _pathetic._" With that having been said, Haku slit the man's throat, dropped the ecto-gun by his body, put his kunai away after wiping the blood off it, and walked away, this time invisibly.

While walking, Haku mulled over what Clockwork had told him.

_

* * *

_

_Haku stood in the large circular room at the top of Clockwork's Tower, eyeing the ghost of time curiously as he changed between a middle-aged man into an elderly man, then back to a child._

_Haku bowed slightly. "Master of Time, I need your assistance." He addressed politely. "There is a person I need you to find; the reincarnation of my old master. I've been looking for his ghost for seventeen years now, and I don't think he became one." _

_Clockwork sighed and turned into a man again. "Haku, I'm completely willing to help, but..." He trailed off. "He's, em, not exactly like Zabuza..."_

"_I don't care." Haku said defiantly. "_Who is he?_" _

_Clockwork inhaled deeply. "Fine, fine. His name is Danny Fenton, although, you may know him better by his alter-ego, Danny _Phantom_. Surely you do, I mean, his so-called wanted posters are all over the Ghost Zone." _

_Upon hearing this, Haku raised an eyebrow. "_So-called_ wanted posters? What do you mean by that? Every ghost that I've heard talking about him calls him either a pest or a constant nuisance."_

_Clockwork sighed again. "Well, yes and no. The reason they call him that is because he's always sending those ghosts back here, to keep them out of the human realm." _

"_Oh..." _Hmm, working for a half-ghost that hates ghosts, that'll be interesting._ Haku thought, amused. "OK, then. Tell where to find him." _

_Clockwork seemed a bit taken aback by Haku's sudden conclusion, but made an image appear on his circular time mirror. It was a picture of Fenton Works, neon sign and all. "That's what his house looks like, although, since it's too dangerous to teleport you right outside it, just to be on the safe side-" He made a portal appear next to Haku. "-this portal will take you to the edge of town._

_Right when Haku was about to step through the portal, Clockwork stopped him. "Wait." He pulled out a picture of Danny in his human form and gave it to him. "I know the wanted posters only show his ghost self, so this might help you. Also, be on your guard, that town is crawling with the Guys in White and other ghost hunters."_

_As Haku bid him his thanks, Clockwork thought to himself,_ He has no idea what he's getting himself into. But, in the end, it may help him find his true destiny, the one he was meant for the day he died...

_

* * *

_

While Haku was walking through the gridline streets of the outskirts of town, Danny had his own problems to worry about. His entire family was currently glued to the TV in their living room as it tuned in on a Breaking News report.

"This is Tiffany Snow with breaking news! The Guys in White have discovered something incredibly shocking. After an anonymous ghost's tip, and some DNA tests, they have come to the conclusion that the Ghost Boy, Danny Phantom, is a half-ghost, half-human hybrid! The human identity of him is still a mystery, but the Guys in White have a message for him. We take you live to Lance Thunder."

The screen then switched to in front of City Hall, where Operative K and O were standing at the podium. Vlad stood next to them and a large crowd was gathered in front of the stairs. "Thank you, Tiffany." Lance Thunder's voice said. "Here, the Guys in White have an important message for Danny Phantom and the citzens of Amity Park."

"People of Amity Park," Op. K began. "We have incredible news that could impact the entire world!"

Op. O took over. "After an anonymous ghost's tip, and a few tests of the Ghost Boy's DNA, we have come to the conclusion that Danny Phantom is apparently half-human! And-"

Op. K pulled out Danny's wanted poster and continued speaking. "-the fact that he's a wanted criminal in the Ghost Zone, with a huge bounty on his head! See! He really is evil!"

"Furthermore, if you're listening to this, Ghost Boy, we have an offer for you. Either come down here immediately to reveal yourself,"

"or chose to hide and make us have to track you down. Either way, we _will_ find you. You've got nowhere left to hide now!"

* * *

Phew, the chapter's done. I didn't expect it to be this long. He he, a bit of foreshadowing in that flashback with Clockwork, but although I love to spoil stories, I'm not saying a word of what I have planned for later in the story, but I will say this: Naruto isn't the only thing being crossed over here, but I _will not_ tell you what the other show is, won't have lond to wait, though. Sorry again that it took so long to update, I promise I'll try to get the next chapter in before Tuesday!

Also, #178 of the Evil Overlord List was: _If I have the hero cornered and am about to finish him off and he says "Look out behind you!" I will not laugh and say "You don't expect me to fall for that old trick, do you?" Instead I will take a step to the side and half turn. That way I can still keep my weapon trained on the hero, I can scan the area behind me, and if anything was heading for me it will now be heading for him._


	4. Chapter 4

***Chapter edited on August 12, 2010.**

PLEASE DON'T KILL ME! I'm SSSOOOOOOOOOOO sorry for not updating sooner! But, if you kill me now, you'll never know the rest of the story! So, without further a dew, I give you chapter four!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or Naruto.

Chapter Four: Captured

_If they find me, I'm dead... _

Danny was so stunned, he couldn't even move. Sweat started to pour down his forehead, and if his rib cage wasn't there, his heart would probably have jumped out of his chest, it was beating so fast. He just stood there, frozen in the middle of the living room, while Jack and Maddie were going insane.

"That ghost scum can't escape now!" Jack proclaimed, punching the air.

"That Ghost Boy's going to get what he deserves!" Maddie leered. "He—" She was about to continue, when she noticed out of the corner of her eye Danny's fear-filled face. "Danny?" Maddie walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly. "What's wrong?"

This broke Danny out of his trance. "Huh? Ooh." he swatted Maddie's hand away lightly. He fixed a fake smile onto his face and began to edge toward the front door. "Uh, yeah, I'm OK. I- uh- just have to- uh- go to- uh-" his stammering was cut short when the GIW operatives came back on.

They were glaring up at the sky, their brows furrowed. Even though they wore sunglasses, all the people watching could clearly tell they were annoyed. Then, noticing they were back on, looked into the cameras.

Op. O began. "So, Ghost Boy, trying to saver your last few days of freedom, are you? Very well."

Op. K continued for him. "For anyone who can give us the identity of Danny Phantom before we find out ourselves, we're willing to match the bounty the Ghost Zone has put on him, of $4 million."

Op. O waved his fist in the air. "Enjoy your freedom for now, Phantom! It'll be the last you'll ever see, you can count on that!" The screen went back to the newsroom, Tiffany Snow now on a report about some plane crash that happened nearby, in a reporter's usual 'the only emotions I have are happy and chipper' tone of voice.

Jack was now jumping up and down, grinning like an idiot, and exclaiming excitedly, "Maddie, we could be millionaires! All we'd have to do is capture Phantom and hand him over to the Guys in White! This town'll be rid of him for good, and we could be rich again!"

Maddie, with her attention now on Jack, was now a bit more skeptical. "Uh- I don't know, Jack. I mean, who knows what they'd do to him. Don't you think that would be a bit cruel, even for him?"

The fact that his mom was sort of standing up for him allowed a small smile to show on Danny's face. But whatever trace of it disappeared instantly at Jack's next comment.

"C'mon, Mads. Think about everything he's done to this town! Attacking the old mayor, being part of at least ten robberies at one point, causing millions of dollars in damage, and attacking our own _son_ for cryin' out loud! Don't you think a low-life like him should get locked away for the rest of his afterlife?"

Maddie rubbed the back of her head in thought. "Well, when you put it that way..." Then, pulling an ecto-gun out of nowhere, and with an evil grin on her face, she yelled, "Let's get him!"

"Yeah! Let's go!" Jack also pulled an ecto-gun out of seemingly thin air, and the both of them bolted out the front door.

Danny felt hurt and betrayed. Well, betrayed might not have been the best word for it, since Vlad was never on his side to begin with, but still. A wave of anguish also came over his mind, from all the things his parents had said about him, and how he knew they would readily kill him in his ghost form if it meant $4million for them. But it was quickly gone when his rage began to build up inside him. _All right, then, Vlad. You expose my secret, I expose yours._ He thought sadistically. His hands balled into fists and an angry snarl crossed his face. A familiar blue light appeared around Danny's waist.

Jazz, who had been sitting quietly on the couch up until this point, got up and put a hand on Danny's shoulder. "Danny... Wait." She hadn't noticed the balled fists and snarl yet. "I know what I'm doing, Jazz." Danny just ignored her following objections and turned ghost, jumping up and phasing through the ceiling on his way out.

He raced at top speed toward city hall. _Vlad isn't getting out of this if _I_ have anything to say about it. _Unfortunately, before the building even came into view, he was blasted out of the sky by a familiar pinkish red blast from an ecto-gun. _Crap... _

Danny skidded to a stop on the hard asphalt of the street, lying on his right side. Valerie landed in front of him a second later, in her black and red battle suit, her ecto-gun emitting the high-pitched whine that meant it was powered for a shot. "You're not getting away from me this time, Phantom." She spat. "I want that money."

But before Valerie had time to shoot him, a neon green net came from her left, trapping Danny. Jack and Maddie emerged from the GAV that had just pulled up, their own ecto-guns blazing. "If there's anyone getting that money, it's us!" Jack bellowed.

Valerie was not amused. "I don't care! I need that money a lot more than you do, that's for sure!"

As the two sides continued to argue, their enemy forgotten, Danny tried to break out of the net while they were distracting each other, but gave a loud yelp as the net shocked him, hard and unrelentingly. The bickering voices became distant as he drifted off into sub consciousness, the intense eletricution almost making him revert back into a human right then and there. _No. Stay in ghost form. They can't find out. Not yet... _

_

* * *

_Meanwhile, Haku had been standing invisibly at the back of the crowd listening to the GIW operatives, thinking with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed, _They'll have to go through _me _if they think they're going to capture Master Phantom like that._ He'd been referring Danny as 'Master Phantom', for the past few hours, since he knew he wouldn't like being called Zabuza._ That's what _they_ can count on. _

His gaze fell on Vlad standing behind the two GIW agents. _Hmm, I wonder why that man behind them is grinning like that?_ He unfolded his arms, turned, and started walking away. _Well, it's probably none of my concern, but still..._ _He seems suspicious. I'll just keep an eye on him for a little while. But, for now..._

Haku jumped into the air and, hovering about fifty feet above the apartment and office buildings, no longer invisible, scanned the ground for Fentonworks, his slightly tattered cloak billowing in the wind.

Once he made a slight half turn, he spied the giant Op Center rising above the skyline. Something that resembled a sweat drop appeared on the back of his head. _...Couldn't they have made that a _little_ more inconspicuous?_ He sighed and started flying toward the neon sign-lit house.

Suddenly, an ecto-blast came out from behind him, but Haku swerved to the side just in time. He turned around and saw who shot at him. Six GIW Operatives were now hovering in a loose circle around Haku, all with their ecto-guns blazing.

"You're under arrest for the killing of a fellow Operative, and for being a ghost!" One of them called to Haku. All six of them shot at him in unison, but Haku was no longer there. The six beams all collided, ending in a small explosion, sending the six GIW Operatives down to the ground.

_Will they ever learn? I still don't understand why the mere mention of their name strikes fear into a ghost. These guys are pathetic._ Haku landed silently on the ground, in the middle of the circle of GIW agents, two of which were currently unconscious, the other four struggling to their feet, glaring at Haku.

"All- right. You- asked- for it." The same agent as before said in between gasps of breath. He and the other three each took out a weapon that resembled a grappling gun, only the grapple was glowing slightly blue.

This only made Haku laugh maniacally. "_I _asked for it?" Then he turned serious. "I could kill all of you in the time it takes you to blink without a second thought if I wanted." He held up four needles in between the fingers of his right hand. Narrowing his eyes into a cold, emotionless stare, he advised, "If you valued your life at all, you should leave right now."

Realizing he was completely serious, three of them listened. They all yelped and turned on their heels, activated their jet packs, and were gone in under thirty seconds. As he watched them disappear into the distance, Haku thought, _Hmm, not bad. I'm surprised those jet packs were even still intact after that explosion..._

"Cowards!" The last agent called after them, momentarily turning his back on Haku. "I'm gonna make sure you get fired! Running from a ghost fight! Cow—" He was cut off midword by at least ten needles piecing his various vital organs. The GIW agent fell to the ground with a thud, his mouth open, with blood starting to pour out of it, his eyes staring blankly ahead.

"Should've listened." Haku simply stated.

Then he eyed the grappling gun-like weapon on the ground by his outward extended arm. _What is this thing, anyway? _As his foot came back to kick it, he thought, _It looks kind of like a grappling gun sort of thing, but what was it supposed to- _As his foot connected with the glowing blue grapple, he felt a horrible eletric pulse course through his body, starting from his leg. He bit his lip to keep from screaming in pain. _Is that thing made of Ectoranium or something? God, that hurt. _He stood there in intense pain for a few minutes until the pain receded.

He turned on his heel and pulled the cloak's hood over his head again, and started walking away, becoming invisible the rest of the way to Fentonworks. _Now I'm starting to see why they're so feared in the Ghost Zone. If one of those grapples had latched onto me... _He didn't want to think about it.

But, if Haku had gotten to Fentonworks just five minutes before, he would have seen the still sub conscious Danny get pulled from the GAV by Valerie, Jack, and Maddie, and dragged into the house to his imminent doom.

* * *

I love cliffhangers. Again, I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY sorry for making you wait this long for an update! School's been really sucky, and I kinda had a little writer's block for this chapter. But, now that I got Danny captured, things should be getting interesting in the next chapter. Virtual cakes and cookies to all my reviewers! I should have another chapter up sometime in the next two weeks. Byes!


	5. Chapter 5

***Chapter edited August 12, 2010.**

Darn it! I'm a week late again! Please don't try and kill me with flames! I'm sorry!

Alright, so I don't bore you with my apologies, here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or Naruto.

Chapter Five: Torture

Danny awoke with a splitting headache. He shook his head and groaned slightly. As he cracked his eyes open, Danny began to hear voices talk somewhere else in the room.

"Hey, he's awake!" One of the voices said. It was Valerie's.

"He's awake? _Finally_, I thought he was going to sleep for _hours_." This one belonged to Jack.

_Ugh, where am I? _Danny wondered for a brief second. Then it all came back to him. _Ah, no. _He shot up into a sitting position, taking in his new surroundings.

Danny was currently in his parent's lab, the portal behind him, and trapped inside a slightly glowing blue orb, about three feet in diameter, with pinkish red energy binding his hands and feet together. The orb was connected to a suspicious looking machine by a narrow pipe meeting the bubble right above Danny's left shoulder.

Jack, Maddie, and Valerie were standing in front of him, all with glares fixed to their faces. Staring down at his bonds, he thought, _This will _not _end well._

"So, Ghost Boy," Maddie decided to speak first. "We're just going to ask you point blank: _Who are you_?"

Even given the circumstances, Danny couldn't help but laugh. _Do they honestly think I'm just going to tell them? _"Do you honestly think I'm going to tell you?"

Now it was Valerie's turn. She pointed a finger at him. "Listen here, ghost. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. So which is it gonna be? We'll ask you again: _Who are you_?"

"That depends. What's the hard way?" Danny just _had_ to dare to ask that.

Jack narrowed his eyes, and replied simply, "This." He then pressed a large red button on the wall.

Almost immediately, a small spray of yellow liquid came from the pipe and hit Danny's shoulder, and instantly it ate right through his jumpsuit. He screamed when the liquid came in contact with his skin. A couple seconds later, the spray stopped, and the access fluid drained away through the bottom of the orb.

Danny drew in a few deep breaths, trying not to scream some more. Maddie spoke up. "You like our latest invention? It's a special acid-like substance that only affects ghosts. It's basically liquid ectoranium. If you cooperate now, we might just get you to a hospital for those burns if you tell us your name. Or better yet, just simply change back.

_Well, this worked the last time Valerie captured me ._ . ."Valerie . . ." Danny's voice cracked slightly from the pain. "You gave Danielle a chance, why not me?"

Valerie just replied with hitting the button again. The spray came on again, and Danny let out another scream. It stopped a second later.

"Because, _Phantom_." Valerie spat. "Danielle was an innocent girl. She had never done anything evil or destructive." She started to pace, her hands behind her back. "And besides, _she_ didn't have _$4 million _bounty on her head! And don't try that guilt trip you gave me, either. It won't get you out of this anytime soon."

Jack and Maddie had been listening to Valerie's short rant.

"Um, I'm confused. Who's Danielle?" Jack asked.

"Oh, uh- she's- uh- my- uh—" Danny stammered.

"I'll tell you who she is." Valerie pointed a finger at Danny, while facing the older ghost hunters. "She's Phantom's little half-ghost 'cousin'," She held up her fingers in an air quote. "or so he says, because I'm starting to seriously doubt that's who she _really_ is, since you two _clearly_ have more in common than I thought."

Maddie held up her hands. "Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me that this Danielle you're talking about is also half-ghost? How many half-ghosts _are_ there anyway? Up until a few hours ago, we didn't know they were even possible!"

Valerie crossed her arms and turned to face Danny, a cold glare fixed on her face. Jack and Maddie followed suit. "Well? How many are there, really? 'Cause so far, I only know three: You, Danielle, and _Vlad_." Venom was dripping from her voice by the time she got to 'Vlad'.

Danny was stunned. _Wait a minute. Did she just say _Vlad "You- you knew- about Vlad?"

"Yup. After we rescued Danielle, I went back see if Vlad _Masters _was okay. I found him down in his lab, as Vlad _Plasmius_, talking to what appeared to be a hologram…of…you." Valerie pointed to Maddie.

Maddie was taken aback. "Wait a minute. Did you just say that Vlad Masters is a ghost?"

"But- but- Vladdie can't be a ghost, that's impossible!" Jack cried. "How did he—" Then it hit him.

"The accident! His ecto-acne must've given him ghost powers or something!" Maddie was thinking the same thoughts as Jack. "Jack…" Then, another thought occurred to her. "Wait. Did you just say he was talking to a hologram of _me_?"

"Actually, yeah. Vlad has a thing for you. Ever since Da— Jack 'stole' you from him, he has been trying to get revenge by oh, say, killing Jack and making you join him. Oh, and he also named his cat Maddie, too." Danny stated, making air quotes on 'stole' as best he could with his hands cuffed together.

While Jack had a look of betrayal on his face, and Maddie with pure rage in her eyes, although her face was emotionless, Valerie had gone right back to questioning Danny. "Alright, well now that we have that out of the way, as long as you're in that torture chamber, I'm still curious as to how Danielle got _her _ghost powers." Her finger hovered menacingly over the evil big red button.

Instead of fear, though, Danny's face twisted into anger. "You could've easily asked me that a year ago, so why now? Are you planning on tracking her down and turning her into the Guys in White too? I'm sure they would pay a hefty price for another halfa to experiment on mercilessly! That's the thing about you! When there's something you want, you'll do whatever it takes to get it!" Danny probably shouldn't have kept going, but he was on a role. "You're too blind with your own greed to tell right from wrong! You never care who gets hurt in the process! Just so you can get what you want!"

Unfortunately, Valerie had been gritting her teeth in rage that whole time. "SHUT UP! You don't know anything about me!" She slammed her hand down on the button. Hard.

The familiar yellow acid began pouring out the pipe again, but in a much harder spray this time. Danny screamed, his only coherent words being, "_MY EYE_! _MY EYE_!" Acid had managed to seep into his left eye, blinding him in it instantly. He became a crumpled mass inside that orb, in a desperate attempt to protect his other eye.

_Don't change back! Don't change back! _It was incredibly hard not to, though, since his entire left side felt like it was being poked with thousands of red-hot needles, and his eye felt like molten lead was being poured into the socket.

"This is what you deserve, Phantom!" Valerie's outburst was barely heard over Danny's screaming.

"_Please! Stop it! Stop it!_" Danny cried, uncurling just enough for his voice to not be muffled. But Valerie kept her hand firmly on that cursed button.

"Change back and we'll stop it." Jack stated, hatred dripping off every word.

"_NO! You don't understand! You don't want to do this!_" He shrieked at the top of his lungs.

After what seemed like an eternity, the acid finally stopped. Danny uncurled from his little ball, with one hand covering his left eye tightly. Opening his useful eye, he looked at the three ghost hunters standing before him, his breathing ragged. Danny was loosing power, and fast. _Won't last…much longer. _

Maddie snapped. "We will _never_ regret doing this, Phantom! Never! What makes you think we will? Are you someone important? Rich?"

Danny had to suck in a sharp breath in order to speak. "No." His voice was barely above a whisper. "Because..." The familiar white ring appeared around his waist, and Danny collapsed in the orb, letting the ring slide over his body. "...I'm...your...son."

His consciousness faded into blackness.

* * *

Yay! The chapter is finally up! *Chuckles* darkly Danny's secret is now revealed! What are his parents going to think? Why hadn't Haku intervened during that entire chapter? Is Valerie gonna report Danny to the GIW, for revenge and the money?

You'll have to find out for yourselves in the next chapter!

Okay, I'm going to be daring, and shoot for the next chapter up in about three weeks from today. Byes!


	6. Chapter 6

***Chapter edited August 12, 2010.**

Hurray! I got this up a week ahead of schedule! Well, so I won't delay you any further, here it is!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or Naruto.

Chapter Six: Betrayal

Haku was not pleased. One minute, he was phasing into Fenton Works, the next, he was sitting with his hands and feet bound with ghost proof rope, in the top room of Clockwork's tower, with Clockwork himself standing over him.

"What is the meaning of this?" Haku demanded angrily.

Clockwork sighed, morphing into a child. "Alright. To put it simply, if you had intervened with the events taking place at the Fenton household just now, then the fate of the entire Ghost Zone would have fallen apart. Therefore, you must stay here until the events run their course."

"And what _are _these 'events' of which you speak? If you simply _told_ me not to, then I won't interfere." Haku struggled against his restraints again.

"_Because_, Haku. I know you would have interfered if your future master was about to be tortured almost to death. With acid."

"WHAT?" Haku had a second's worth of surprise, but then it melted away into full blown rage. He decided to put his plans of escape into action. He leaped forward and, since his hands were behind his back, prepared to bite Clockwork. Yes, _bite_.

He probably would've succeeded too, but given the fact that Clockwork_ knew_ he was going to strike (he _is_ the Ghost of Time, after all), he paused time the instant he finished his sentence.

While Haku was frozen in time midair, his jaw open, ready to strike with his teeth, Clockwork untied his legs from under his cloak, and replaced the rope with a suspiciously glowing blue shackle on one ankle, locking the other end onto a pole along the wall.

He then let time run its course again. Haku proceeded to fall to the floor with a loud thud once the chain went taught.

Lying awkwardly on his stomach, he looked up at Clockwork, a surprised and enraged look on his face. He stared behind him at the length of chain connecting him to the wall. "How did you...?"

"I'm the Ghost of Time, remember? _You_ have the ability to move at the speed of sound; _I _can stop time completely and move freely in it. There's a difference." Clockwork morphed into an old man.

"So, what you're saying is that I have to wait here while my master gets tortured?" Haku forced himself into a kneeling position on the floor.

"Well, actually..." Clockwork stepped to his left and opened up a portal, showing a picture of Amity Hospital. "I can just teleport you a little into the future. It's close enough to your own time stream for you to not need a medallion, but time is very complicated, so I'd rather not do that. ...So, yes, you do." He changed back into a child.

_Grr. . . What kind of future is horrible enough for Clockwork to keep me here? _Haku voiced his question. "What future for the Ghost Zone is so bad that you need to keep me here?"

Clockwork sighed for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day. "This." He waved his staff, and the image in the portal blurred and showed the alternate future of the Ghost Zone.

_The picture was of one of the larger Ghost Zone cities, all of the buildings either crumbling or destroyed altogether. All the streets were empty; no ghost would dare to be out on the streets. A few GIW soldiers in full body armor were patrolling the streets, ecto-guns blazing and ready to fire at any ghosts brave or stupid enough to be on the streets._

_At that moment, a more human-like ghost dressed in rags and wielding a rusty old knife jumped one of the soldiers. Or tried to, anyway. The soldier turned at the last second and shot him, hitting the ghost square on. He screamed and fell to the ground with a thud. Another soldier a few feet away fired a net at the ghost, trapping him inside and electrocuting him. _

_A sigh came from the GIW who had fired the net. "Not another one. When will this rebellion end? They know they can't win. They're just committing suicide for themselves."_

_The other soldier snorted. "I'd've given up when I had the chance." He turned toward the ghost trapped in the net. "So why _do_ you ghosts resist?" _

_The ghost in the net snarled. "Because you bastards don't belong here! Humans don't belong in the Ghost Zone, let alone ghost hunters!" He spat. "You ran out of room in your own world, so you just came and took ours! And we want it back!" He tried to cut his way through the net with his knife for a split second, until... _

"_Enough!" The first guard that he had tried to jump kicked him in the chest, knocking the breath out of the nameless ghost. "It doesn't matter! You're still going to the place where all of your other little friends in the rebellion have gone! To the same place where death in the afterlife comes as a blessing, you piece of ectoplasmic scum!" He kicked him again, and then threw the net into a nearby containment vehicle. The GIW soldier slammed the door in the rear of the vehicle, got in the driver's seat, and drove off into the Ghost Zone, leaving his partner behind._

Clockwork waved his staff again, making the portal flicker back to the image of Amity Hospital. "You see? _That's_ what would happen to the Ghost Zone if you had intervened. You _must not _keep Danny's secret from getting revealed. It will _destroy _the entire Ghost Zone. Understood?"

Emotionlessly, yet somehow reluctantly, Haku nodded. "Understood."

The next few minutes passed in silence. Suddenly, an ambulance pulled up to the hospital inside the portal.

"Well, that's your cue." Clockwork waved his staff and made Haku's bounds disappear. He then pointed at the stretcher coming out of the ambulance as he morphed into an adult. "That's him, on the stretcher. Follow him and the doctors invisibly until he's alone. In case you lose them, the room they'll put him in is number 413 on the fourth floor. Got that?"

Haku stood up and nodded. "413 on the fourth floor." As he stepped into the portal, he couldn't help but ask over his shoulder, "But . . . How did those idiots, the Guys in White, take over the Ghost Zone like that? I know most ghosts are pretty weak, but some of us are a real force to be reckoned with. We would _never _give up the Ghost Zone."

Clockwork simply cast him a sad glance. "Ectoranuim is a very powerful thing. Not even I can touch it and feel no pain." His expression changed to a more authoritative one as he changed into an adult and pushed Haku through the portal. "Go. You have a destiny to fulfill." He urged, more to himself than to Haku, who couldn't even hear him anyway.

* * *

Jack, Maddie, and Valerie couldn't have been more horrified and stunned in their lives. Well, you would be too if you just found out that the person you had just been torturing unmercifully turned out to have been your son and/or semi-close friend.

Lucky for Jack, he had simply fainted about a second later (and make the entire house shake when he landed), and didn't have to bear the trauma yet.

Valerie's right hand — the one that was hovering over the button—fell limp at her side when saw Danny's body in place of Phantom's. _But- but- but that's impossible! How can _Phantom_, my worst enemy,_ _be sweet, caring Danny Fenton? _Her mind was racing. She could only stand there in horror as one of her first and only real friends was slowing dying right in front of her, by her own hand.

Maddie was the only one that could still think somewhat clearly. _Get him out of there! Get him out of there! _Was her only coherent thought as she rushed over to the machine and pressed a small switch that deactivated the orb.

Danny fell to the floor, unfortunately landing on his left side. She bounded over to him, and laid him flat on his back. "Valerie! Call an ambulance! Now!"

That broke Valerie out of her trance. She sprinted upstairs, three steps at a time, and was at the phone in less than four seconds. She dialed 911 and asked for an ambulance at Fenton Work's stat.

Unfortunately, the operator needed more specifics. "What is the specific affliction, ma'am?"

"ACID! He's got acid burns on his entire left side! Is that specific enough?" Valerie was flailing her arms in panic.

"And how did he get those burns, ma'am, exactly?"

"He'll be _dead _by the time I'm done explaining everything! Just send an ambulance, _NOW_!" She was grinding her teeth in frustration.

"We'll send an ambulance right away, ma'am."

Valerie slammed the phone down on the receiver and thundered back downstairs. "They're sending an ambulance! ...How's he doing?" She ran over to Danny's side.

"This looks bad. These burns are really serious." Maddie always stated the obvious when she was on the verge of tears. She put her head in her hands, and cried, "Why did Jack and I even build that torture machine? I'll never be able to live with myself if Danny dies!"

"Mrs. Fenton, please, calm down! You couldn't have known! None of us could!" Valerie tried to comfort Maddie, at the same time holding back her own tears. However, Jack had just woken up, and through the look of horror on his face told Valerie that he'd comfort her, and to go watch for the ambulance. She mechanically walked up the stairs and waited at the door.

She didn't have long to wait, however, when the paramedics arrived roughly thirty seconds later. She directed them down the staircase to the lab, fighting back tears all the way.

When the three paramedics got the stretcher down there, they carefully lifted Danny's limp form onto it and strapped him down. Jack, Maddie, and Valerie followed them until they loaded Danny into the ambulance. As the three paramedics stepped into the ambulance as well, one of the men turned and said, "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid there's only room left for two more people."

Valerie stepped backward. "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up with you guys later. I'll get Sam on the way; I know where she works."

"Okay Valerie." Maddie managed to thank as she stepped into the ambulance with Jack, sobbing into his shoulder.

As the ambulance drove away, Valerie let the tears she had been holding back for the last 5 minutes run freely down her cheeks. _How could this plan have gone so wrong? All this time, every time I had hunted Phantom, each I time I had tortured him, that had been Danny all along? _She started walking in the direction of the Skulk and Lurk bookstore where Sam worked. _But wait... if he had known...that I was...a ghost hunter... then why would he... Unless... _She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes wide, realization dawning on her. _Unless he had planned this all along! He was trying to get me to trust him! He was waiting for that perfect moment to attack me! To double cross me! _Hatred seethed within her._ That no good, lying, ectoplasmic _scum_! He just wanted to kill me, get me out of the way! What was I thinking back there? He deserves to be locked up for the rest of his miserable life in a secret government facility where he'll be tested on unmercifully!_ She spied a nearby phone booth._ In fact... _

She bolted to it, stepped in, and slammed the door behind her. Valerie picked up the receiver, inserted a quarter, and dialed a number.

The phone rang on the other end twice before someone picked up the receiver. "Amity Park branch of the Guys in White. How may I help you?" Operative K asked in a slightly bored tone. He had been stuck with reception desk duty that day, since the normal person that did it was sick.

"Hello," Valerie replied, "This is Valerie Grey, aka the Red Huntress, and I have just gained the knowledge of the Ghost Boy's human identity..."

* * *

There ya go, folks! The next chapter! Hehe... Now things will really start to get interesting!

I'll estimate on another two weeks, maybe. Sorry if this annoys you, but school sucks.


	7. Chapter 7

***Chapter edited August 12, 2010.**

I'm so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so sorry that I didn't update when I promised! I've just been having writer's block lately, along with two big projects due last Monday and a research paper due this Monday. But, to make up for it, this is the longest chapter in the story so far! Well, so I won't delay you any further with my sappy apologies, here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or Naruto!

Chapter Seven: Hospitalized.

_"Hello," Valerie replied, "This is Valerie Grey, aka the Red Huntress, and I have just gained the knowledge of the Ghost Boy's human identity..."_

Over the course of the elapsed year, Valerie had been revealed as the Red Huntress, but the GIW had refused to let her work for them, due to their strict "18 and older" policy.

There was a small_ thunk_ on the other end as Op. K dropped the receiver. "H-how did you get that information?" He demanded as he scooped up the receiver.

Valerie smirked sinisterly. "Oh, I have my ways. But I guess I should give some credit to the Fentons; we _had _agreed to split the money, but the minute they found out who he was... Well, that's not important right now. The point is that I know who he is and I want that bounty..."

"Oh, right. The money..."

"Tell your superiors to bring the $4 million, in cash, to Amity Hospital in one hour. I'll be waiting outside." She hung up the phone and took a running start down the alley, making her jet sled appear under her feet, content on getting to the hospital before the GIW as she took off into the air.

* * *

Sam, however, completely oblivious of the event that had just taken place a block and a half away, was calmly sitting at the checkout desk of the Skulk and Lurk Bookstore, reading a book. _What a slow day... I wonder what Danny's doing..._

Suddenly, Jazz burst through the doors, panting, with her face red and covered with sweat. "Sam! Danny's in trouble! Come on! I'll explain on the way!" She exclaimed, running behind the counter and grabbing Sam by her shirt, attempting to pull her toward the door.

Sam, getting the message, stopped resisting and ran out the door along with Jazz, leaving a very perplexed customer behind, who had been about to pay for his book.

As they both sprinted down the side streets, Sam asked, panicked, "What happened to Danny?" She panted in between breaths.

"I-I don't know! I was walking home from a date with Josh (her newly found boyfriend), then I suddenly saw this ambulance outside our house with Danny being loaded inside! It had driven away before I could do anything! I just ran straight over here! I don't know what's going on!" She explained, even more panicked than Sam. "I don't know what happened to him! All I know is that we have to get to the hospital, and fast!"

* * *

Meanwhile, Jack and Maddie were waiting nervously in the waiting room outside Danny's hospital room. They were huddled together on the small couch, Maddie sobbing quietly into Jack's shoulder, Jack with a blank look on his face, staring down at the floor.

A few minutes ago the ambulance had arrived with Danny, but the doctors had immediately rushed him off into the ER, one of the doctors simply telling them to sit in the waiting room until further notice. They had been kept in the dark about his condition ever since.

Suddenly, Jazz and Sam burst through the doors of the elevator and rushed toward them. Maddie looked up, her eyes puffy and red from crying, and stared, confused, at the two teens.

"We came over as fast as we could!" Jazz cried, catching her breath from running half a mile as full speed.

"What happened to Danny?" Sam demanded, her chest heaving.

Jack and Maddie didn't answer. They just looked down at the floor—which was growing more interesting by the second—and hung their heads in shame. "We-we never meant for this to happen... Any of it... We didn't know..." Maddie whispered. "We didn't know..."

Something clicked in the back of Jazz's mind. Her eyes went wide from the shock. "Mom, dad, _please_ tell me you didn't! Please!" She leaned over and grabbed onto Jack and Maddie's jumpsuits with each hand and stared at them desperately, hoping against hope that they hadn't done what she thought they did. Unfortunately, she was right.

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Sam broke in nervously, for she had been working at the bookstore all day and hadn't even seen the news report.

Jazz's grip loosened on the couple's jumpsuits as she stared at Sam. "You mean . . . You hadn't seen . . ."

"The Guys in White were going to give $4 million to anyone who could give them Danny Phantom's human identity, after they had received a tip from an anonymous ghost that told them he was half human." Maddie explained, trying to hold back sobs, with the fact that Sam and Jazz had known about Danny's ghost powers eluding the both of them. "M-me and Jack, and Valerie . . . We had agreed to split the money . . . When we had captured him . . . he refused . . . to tell us . . . so we . . . we tortured him . . ." Maddie's voice was a whisper by the time she got to the last sentence as she started to cry into her husband's shoulder again.

It was all Sam could do to stare at Maddie in shock and disbelief. Then it all melted away into anguish and rage. She clenched her fists and yelled, "Did you ever stop to think _once_ during that whole thing? Did you ever once stop and think that _maybe_, just maybe, that you were torturing someone you might know? That you cared about? No, I didn't think so! You two were too blinded by greed and your hatred toward ghosts to have it even occur to you!" It was a good thing that nobody else was in the room with them currently. It was also a good thing that the walls were thick.

Jack and Maddie just sat there and took Sam's horrendous scolding. When she paused, Jack simply moaned, "Why hadn't he just told us? Why didn't he trust us?"

"Oh, let me guess!" Jazz replied, her arms flailing up into the air. "How about every time you said you wanted to rip the Ghost Boy apart, molecule by molecule? Or what about trying to destroy him every time you met? Or maybe it was the fear that you two would turn him over to the Guys in White the minute you found out! After all—" She pointed at Jack. "You're always going on about how great they are, how they're heroes to want to catch any ghost they see and experiment on it mercilessly! You guys seem _so _trustworthy!" It was a _very _good thing that the walls were thick.

As Jazz continued her rant, something clicked in Sam head. "Wait . . . Did you say _Valerie_ was with you?"

All three of them stopped talking and stared at Sam, Jack and Maddie's eyes wide. "Oh no. . ." Jazz and Sam slowly turned their heads to stare at each other.

"I thought she was with you two . . . She said she would catch up with us, and get you two on the way. . ." Maddie stuttered nervously, knowing where this was going. "If she's not with you, then . . . Where is she?"

"No no no! She ratted out Danny! The Guys in White are probably on their way over here right now!" Sam banged her fist on a nearby coffee table, creating a small dent in the wood.

Jazz tried to calm her down. "Now, let's not jump to any conclusions . . . There's probably a perfectly logical reason that Valerie isn't here..." She ushered for Sam to sit down. Sam obliged, but she gripped the arms of the chair so tightly that the wood cracked, her face contorted in rage .

The next 57 minutes passed in pained silence, the only sound coming from the occasional crunch of wood from under Sam's mercilless fingers. Suddenly, a doctor came out of the ER and walked up to them. "Um, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton?" He addressed Jack and Maddie.

They both looked up, their eyes no longer red from crying. "How is he?" Maddie asked him, afraid to hear the answer.

The doctor's face remained impassive. "Fortunately, the burns weren't as serious as they appeared, but I'm afraid he'll never regain the use of his left eye. We've got him all bandaged up right now, but he'll still have to stay here until he heals."

That might've been the best news that Jack and Maddie had gotten all day. They both bolted out of their seats and tackled the doctor in a bear hug. "Thank you thank you thank you, doctor." Maddie thanked, about to start sobbing again.

"Can't . . . Breath . . ." He managed to squeeze out.

"Sorry." Jack and Maddie apologized in unison as they released him. Jazz and Sam, however, still remained impassive and slightly downcast in their seats.

Maddie, seeing this, asked, "What's wrong? Aren't you glad that Danny's going to be alright?"

Sam, her eyes slightly hidden in the shadows of her hair, replied bitterly, "I'm not because once he learns what Valerie did, he's going to wish he had died."

"Umm, I don't think I should be getting caught in the middle of this, but what does Miss Grey have to do with any of this?" The doctor broke in, a curious look on his face.

"I'll tell you what I have to do with this whole thing." Valerie suddenly appeared behind them in her regular clothes, carrying a large suitcase handcuffed to her wrist, with Op. K and O standing behind her. "Or, better yet, I'll let these two explain." She grinned evilly.

The two GIW workers stepped forward and addressed Jack and Maddie. "Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, we're here concerning your son, whom, based on the information Miss Grey has kindly given us, is Danny Phantom." Operative K began. "Normally, we would just take over from here, but given your..._ unique _circumstances, we'd like to cut a deal."

Before Op. O could continue for him, though, Maddie leaped out of her seat, turned to face them, and, pointing at them with her finger mere inches from their faces, exclaimed, "Now listen here; a house is one thing, but we will _never _sell out on our own son! I don't care _how_ many zeroes that check has on it! Got it?" Hatred was clearly plastered onto her face as she stood up to the two GIW agents.

By then, Jack was also out of his place on the couch. "Yeah, what she said! We're not going to trade anything you have to offer in exchange for our son!"

Op. O was unscathed, however, as he grabbed Maddie's wrist and shoved it aside. "Unfortunately, Mrs. Fenton, you are not the one calling all the shots. If we wanted, we could easily just take your son by force and never let him see the light of day again, with you two being arrested for harboring a wanted criminal and child abuse. Would you rather have that?"

Instead of a reply, Maddie and Jack sat back down in their spots on the couch and glared at the agents as they took two other open seats. "I'm glad you see it our way." Op. K said slyly as he leaned against the back of the chair, his elbows on the armrests with his fingers meshed in front of his face.

"So, what's this deal?" Jack finally summed up the courage to ask.

"Well..." Op. O pulled out a contract from under his suit and handed it to the couple, along with a pen. "If you would just sign this... we'll be on our way."

They both grasped the contract with one hand on each side—Maddie's other hand holding the pen—and read it to themselves word for word. It read:

_After a period of four months, ending October 27, 2007, Daniel J. Fenton, a.k.a. Danny Phantom, will be released from the Guys in White's custody and returned to his parents, Jack and Madeline Fenton, in exchange for a few confidential documents from said couple. Jack and Maddie Fenton will also receive any two ghosts of their own choosing from said Guys in White labs, to use however they wish. The Guys in White will return full custody of Daniel Fenton to Jack and Maddie Fenton on the aforementioned date, but until then, they are allowed to do any experiment or torture to him that is necessary to their research on ghosts, or to simply keep him in line. _

_I agree to these terms and give the Guys in White full custody of Daniel Fenton for the next four months._

The two read it over about five times to make sure that there were no hidden tricks or rules. Satisfied, they both sadly looked up. "Alright; we'll do it." They grudgingly agreed as they signed the contract.

Meanwhile, as Jack, Maddie and the two GIW agents were conferring, Sam had stood up from her seat—making medium sized chunks of wood from the armrests fall off once they were relieved of pressure—and walked over to Valerie, who had been looking down at her suitcase full of money with a triumphant expression on her face.

As she saw Sam approaching, she asked, her face sincere, "Must be hard, accepting that your boyfriend is that scum, Danny Phantom." her expression hardened. "But, he got what was coming to him; now he's going to have a nice life with the Guys in White—as their lab rat." she added with a grin.

This set off Sam's barely controlled hatred and rage. She balled her right hand into a fist and in an instant; she had nailed Valerie right in the left eye. "Tucker and I knew about this all along! He tried to be your friend and you stabbed him in the back!"

Valerie had stumbled back from the punch, but she regained her balance quickly. "_I _betrayed _him_? He was waiting for the perfect moment to kill me! And probably everyone else too! I saw him for what he was: an evil, lying, manipulating ghost that made the mistake of messing with _me_! How did you not _see_ that?" As she saw another punch coming, she held up her suitcase to protect her self just in time.

"Because all he's ever tried to do was protect this town! He's tried to explain to you that it was never his dog! You never listened! He even tried to be your friend, when the people you thought were friends wouldn't so much as look at you anymore! And how did you repay him? By selling him to the government!" Sam landed another punch to Valerie's suitcase. "I guess Tucker and I were right;" Another punch. "The minute you find out he's Danny Phantom, you shoot first and ask questions never!" she tackled Valerie to the floor.

"But, what about the time that he destroyed my other suit? That could've been me! He wanted to destroy me!" Valerie retorted, trying to get free and pick herself up off the filthy hospital floor, only to have to raise the briefcase again to protect herself from another onslaught at the hands of Sam.

"You idiot! He destroyed your other suit because he _knew_ it wasn't you! Danny _knew _that it was a robot!" This time one of Sam's punches managed to hit Valerie in the shoulder.

Valerie's eye grew wide as comprehension dawned on her. "You mean...He wasn't trying to hurt me? It wasn't an act?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. She broke free, half rolled over on the tile flooring, pushed herself up, and took off in a run down the hallway in the opposite direction, toward the elevators. Sam was about to take off after her when Jazz, who had been watching the fight from the nearby sidelines, grabbed her shoulder.

"Wait." She said, her face solemn. "What's done is done. The Guys in White would've found Danny anyway. C'mon." She started to lead Sam over to Danny's new hospital room, when Op. K and O stood up from their seats, shaking Jack and Maddie's hands. The two girls stopped dead, staring at them.

"A pleasure doing business with you two." Op. K told the couple as his companion rolled up the now signed contract and stowed it away under his suit. The two GIW agents then proceeded to walk right past Sam and Jazz, completely ignoring them, and into Danny's hospital room.

Sam then turned her head to Jack and Maddie. "What did you do?" She asked frantically, already knowing the answer.

Maddie and Jack once again started staring down at the ever-increasingly interesting tile flooring. "The Guys in White now have full custody of Danny until October 27th." Was all Maddie was able to choke out before breaking out into uncontrollable sobs into Jack's shoulder again. Jack simply turned his head away, saying nothing.

Sam and Jazz couldn't believe what they were hearing. _No no no! They're going to kill him before then!_ They knew there was nothing they could do. _No..._

Meanwhile, inside Danny's hospital room, Op. K and O had just entered, with sinister looks of triumph on their faces. Once the door was shut, Op. K turned around to face his co-worker. "Yes! We've finally captured the Ghost Boy!" He rubbed his hands together. "I can already hear his screams for when we do the experiments we have planned for him!"

"Ahem." Haku chose this moment to finally make himself visible. He was leaning casually against the wall, his arms and legs crossed with three needles in between his right hand fingers. "I don't believe that you two have any business here, so I'll say it once; _get out. _Now."

The two GIW agents instantly stopped talking and slowly turned their heads to him in fear. Op. K, his arm shaking, raised his arm up until it was pointing toward Haku. "You...You're the- you're the one who..." News of Haku had spread like wildfire among the GIW operatives.

"I'll say it again; Get out right now or I'll kill you." Haku's voice was cold, and deadly. His grip on the needles in his hand tightened as he stopped leaning against the wall, standing up to his full height.

The utter chaos that pursued half a second later ended in about five seconds, consisting of the two agents both trying to push their way out of the doorframe, almost breaking down the door in the process. They had both tried to push the other out of the way in their dash to safety. Once both of them were out in the waiting room, they sprinted all the way down the hall to the elevator, which had been conveniently open.

Inside the elevator, Op. O turned to his co-worker and blurted, "What the _hell_ is he doing here?" his arms were flailing.

"I don't know! All I know is that we need to report back to headquarters about this and bring reinforcements!" Op. K pounded his right fist into his left palm.

"Yeah, you're right! We're gonna show him that the Guys in White are _not _the pathetic weaklings he takes us for!"

However, the moment that the elevator doors closed at the end of the hallway, Sam and Jazz burst into Danny's hospital room, wondering what made the GIW run out of there in such a hurry.

Unfortunately, the instant that Jazz saw Haku, she screamed, "Ghost!"

Jack and Maddie immediately burst into the room, Jack holding a very big and threatening-looking Ghost Bazooka over his shoulder, Maddie wielding a Fenton Peeler. "Get away from my son!"

Haku merely sighed, a bored tone in his voice. "Unless you want to destroy everything in this room, I suggest not trying to shoot me." He then proceeded to put away the needles in between his fingers, his cloak rustling slightly as he moved. "Relax, I not trying to hurt you or your son; those two idiots from the Guys in White, maybe, but not you four."

"And why would we trust _you_?" Jack replied, charging up his Bazooka.

Four senbon needles whizzed passed each of their necks, missing by millimeters. "Because that's how fast I could kill all of you if I had wanted." Haku answered, his arm still outstretched from throwing the needles. "If you'd simply give me a chance to _explain_, then I'm sure we'd be able to reach and agreement." His negotiation skills had increased from the time he'd spent in the Ghost Zone.

Jack and Maddie lowered their weapons, mumbled, "Fine." in unison, and sat down in two of the chairs lining the wall, Maddie sitting at Jack's right. Jazz followed suite, sitting next to her mother.

Before Sam sat down, however, she asked, "But first, I want to know one thing: Why did those two run out of here at the sight of you? They never seem to know when to quit, and yet they fled like their life depended on it. Why?"

"Alright, in order, they ran out at the sight of me because I'm probably one of the only ghosts that are actually a threat to them, yes, they do seem to not know when to quit for some things, and their life _did_ depend on them getting out of my sight. Any more questions?"

Sam just blinked a couple times and sat down, her mouth slightly ajar.

* * *

While Haku explained everything to the Fenton's and Sam, Valerie was wandering aimlessly through the side streets of Amity Park, not wanting to go anywhere in particular, and certainly not home. A black eye had started to form over her left eye, making her look like she had just been robbed, along with the battered suitcase still handcuffed to her wrist. Only one thought was repeating over and over again in her mind as a single tear flowed down her face:

_What have I done?

* * *

_

Finally! The chapter's done! I thought this thing would never end! Well, I answered Luiz4200's request of giving Valerie a black eye, and I really, truthfully, do not know when I'm going to update again, but I'll be able to get it up before Winter Break is over (aw, come on! We only get 10 days for Winter Break this year?). Oh, and also, I had this little side plot where Valerie finds the body of the first Operative that Haku killed, but I though better of it... No sense getting this story any more complicated. Well, byes!

Also, please review...The blue button is calling you...


	8. Chapter 8

_* Chapter edited September 6, 2010.

* * *

_

Woot! The next chapter's up! Okay, just for those reviewers who said they've never actually seen an episode of Naruto (you know who I'm talking about) this chapter provides a little inside on Haku's dark past.

**Note:** Ghosts do need to eat in all my stories (In Prisoners of Love, Walker's prison had a cafeteria, and ghosts were eating), they also need to breath (in Doctor's Disorders, Bertrand had to wear a mask while he was gassing all the rooms to prevent himself from breathing it), and they need sleep (I can't think of any episodes off the top of my head where a ghost has slept, but I'm putting it in anyway).

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or Naruto, **but Sheila and Gyl are **_**mine.**_

Chapter Eight: Awake

_Running. _

_Danny was running. From what, he did not know yet, but he knew he had to keep moving, to not let them catch him. Somehow, he found he couldn't go ghost or use any of his powers as he tore through the frozen night air, the bare branches of a dormant and snowy forest trying to snare him in their wooden limbs with every step. But still Danny tried to push on, even though every step seemed to send pain shooting up his leg, and every swat of a tree branch felt like razor sharp claws raking across his arms and face. _

_The deep snow had long since frozen his feet and lower legs, and with the constant raking of tree limbs his arms and hands had become bloody and raw. Everything in him screamed to stop, to just give up and succumb to the cold embrace of death that was already starting to take hold in the young halfa's body. But his mind thought otherwise as he heard voices shouting behind him, such as "Get him! He can't have gone far!" or "He can't run forever! We've got the whole valley surrounded!" _

_Suddenly, he came to a clearing, bringing the light of the full moon out into the open, and granting momentary freedom from the deadly trees. A smile crossed Danny's face as he knew he might be able to lose his pursuers, completely forgetting about the clear tracks he left behind in the snow. But, as he swerved to the left, his left ankle caught onto a fallen log that had been hidden beneath the snow. He fell into the glistening powder with a dull thud—the two feet of it muffling his impact—unable to get back on his feet._

How ironic..._ Danny thought as the blood from his arms starting to stain the snow around him a rich red, then to black as it started to freeze in the chilled air. _I have ice powers, and I'm going to freeze to death out in the middle of nowhere, running from I don't know what. _He closed his eyes, finally allowing the relieving and welcoming embrace of death envelope him, as the shouts grew closer. _

_Suddenly, though, and without warning, something big, feathery, and scaly grabbed onto him and lifted him up out of the snow and into the air. Danny, being broken out of his near death trance, stared up in awe at what had grabbed him. _

_An icy blue gryphon, at least seven feet tall and ten long, was clutching him cradle-style in its scaly forelegs, the beast's feathery midnight blue wings outstretched in a glide on the rising wind. _

"_Hold on. I know somewhere that's safe." A young girl, maybe 14 or 15, called from in front of the gryphon's wings. All Danny could see from his point of view, however, was one of her thick, leathery boots rapped around the beast's chest, grey fur mittened hands clinging to its neck like a lifeline. "Oh, and try not to look down." _

_Unfortunately, that advice came a second too late, as Danny was already frozen from not only the cold wind rushing past his poorly sheltered body, but from the terror of seeing just how high up and defenseless he really was. _

_The three of them were cruising along at maybe 90 miles an hour—not very bad in itself—at about only 350 feet in the air—also not too bad—but the thing that was terrifying Danny was the fact that they were heading straight for a very steep, and very high cliff. _How can that girl stay so calm? We're heading right for a cliff!

_As if on cue, the girl stated, "Relax. Gyl here—"she gently pat the gryphon's chest with her visible arm, "—is a ghost, so he can phase us through the cliff if necessary."_

Can she read minds or something? _Danny started to panic, his already fast heartbeat becoming even faster. _

"_Didn't I just say 'relax'?" The mysterious girl's voice still sounded calm, but somehow irritated at the same time. "You'll be fine."_

_Danny was about to yell something along the lines of "How am I supposed to relax when I'm being flown against my will by some girl and a giant ghost gryphon that are about to crash into a huge cliff at 93 miles an hour?" But he and the gryphon, "Gyl", were suddenly blasted out of the sky by an all-too-familiar blue ectoblast. The beast had been forced to release Danny in order to save the girl from losing her own balance and falling, and, unable to reclaim him, the teen began his long plummet to the ground._

_Close to ten Guys in White operatives were trailing them in jetpacks, which had surprisingly been able to handle the current speed. One of them, slightly shorter than the others with unruly black hair and seemingly iris-less and feral black eyes, was holding a smoking ecto-gun. "You can't run forever, reincarnate of Zabuza!" He fired another shot toward him, but barely missed, grazing Danny's leg. "You will pay for what you have done!"_

_As Danny continued to gain speed from falling, he once again attempted to go ghost, but again he found he couldn't. Only this time, he saw why. There had been a glowing blue wristband locked on his right wrist that looked suspiciously like GIW technology. _

_He quickly did a barrel roll to avoid another ectoblast, but it managed to nail him directly in the chest, causing a wave of electricity to circulate through his body. It was all Danny could do to scream in pain and terror as the unmerciful treetops grew ever closer..._

_Everything went black as something struck him in the back of the head. _

Danny snapped his eyes open, making everyone in his hospital room gasp in shock. He closed his eyes again, realizing it was all a dream. Then, Danny snapped his eyes open once more and sat bolt upright in the bed, realizing he wasn't in his room and it wasn't the middle of the night.

Or he tried to, because the second he sat up, pain shot through his entire midsection and his upper left arm.

Danny, biting his tongue in order to stifle a scream, slowly leaned back, taking in his new surroundings. He was lying on a hospital bed, his left arm and most of his body concealed by white sheets, with his right arm lying over his chest, an IV attached just above the wrist. A bandage was wrapped over his left eye.

For a brief second, Danny thought,_ Where _am_ I? _Then it all came back to him. _Oh no... _His one useful eye widened in horror as he frantically grazed around the room.

Danny's bed was in just about the center of the room, the backboard pushed up against the wall with the door on his right wall at the back of the room. The wall to his left was one whole window, with sunlight streaming in. Sam and Jazz were standing up at his right side, smiling at the fact that he had woken up, with Jack and Maddie sitting in chairs backed against the window.

A wave of relief washed over him as saw that there were no GIW in the room. _But... Who is that guy?_ Danny stared at Haku who had been once again leaning against the wall with his arms and legs crossed—only without the needles—directly in front of him. _More importantly, why isn't anyone attacking him? _

"Danny! You're awake!" His thoughts were cut off by Sam's joyful outburst. She leaned over and embraced Danny as best she could with him lying on the bed, but released him when he yelped with the sudden and unexpected burst of pain that shot through his left shoulder and torso. "Sorry." Sam apologized.

Once the pain died down, Danny summed up the courage to speak. "Um, Sam...Who's he? And, uh, more importantly, why is he here?" Danny asked her hesitantly, eyeing Haku nervously.

"Well- um- Danny- uh, this is Haku." Sam stuttered as she gestured toward him. "Apparently, you're the reincarnation of his old master while he was alive." Haku walked forward slightly and bowed to Danny, his face still impassive. "He—"

"And why should I trust you?" Danny asked Haku skeptically, cutting off Sam in the process.

Before Sam could continue after Danny's interruption, however, Jazz cut in, "You really should be thanking him; he's the reason the Guys in White haven't taken over this entire hospital yet. They seem to be...afraid of him."

Danny still glared at Haku warily. "And what proof do you have that he's telling the truth? Maybe he made a deal with the Guys in White! For all you know, he could be part of some sort of convoluted plot to capture me!"

Before Jazz could open her mouth to respond, Haku stood up to his full height, walked over to the edge of Danny's bed, and stated, "If I was not to be trusted, then why had Clockwork directed me to you? Besides, if I really was working for those pathetic excuses for ghost hunters," He pointed to Danny, "_you_ would currently be chained to the bed, unconscious," He gestured to his right, "everyone in this room would be dead, and the Guys in White would have taken over this place about... 48 hours ago."

Danny was stunned, to say the least. After blinking a few times, he snapped out of his slight trance. "Wait, did you just say that _Clockwork_ sent you? And...Have I really been out for two days?"

"Forty-nine, actually—" Maddie chimed in, "—the Guys in White hadn't showed up for another hour...after...you know..." She trailed off as she began staring down at her feet again.

"Oh, you mean when you almost tortured him to death with acid? Is _that _what you're referring to?" Sam cried, about to start another long rant about their lack of morality towards ghosts.

Jack and Maddie flinched at Sam's verbal lashing once again, while Jazz simply turned away. "Sam..." Danny said quietly. When she didn't stop talking he spoke a bit louder, "Sam..." Still, Sam continued her rant. "_Sam!_" He yelled. At last, she heard him.

Sam turned and asked sharply, "What?" For a second, she didn't understand why Danny had stopped her. "Oh..." She sheepishly backed off. "Sorry..."

Meanwhile, Haku had been debating whether or not he should step in. He decided not to. _What's done is done. Besides...I don't think Master would be very pleased if I killed his parents...Without his orders, anyway. And if I had intervened earlier..._ He gave a slight shudder, remembering what Clockwork had shown him of the future Ghost Zone. _I don't want to think about it. I _really_ don't want to think about it. _

Danny sighed. "Okay, to get back on topic..." He turned to Haku. "Do you have any proof that Clockwork sent you?"

Haku could only stare at the geta and socks on his feet. "No, Master. I do not." Shame was evident on his face. "I am sorry."

Before Danny had a chance to reply, Sam's cell phone rang. "Um, excuse me for a moment..." Sam exited the room quietly. _Please don't be my parents, please do _not_ be my parents!_ She thought frantically as she pulled out the cell phone from her pocket, flipping it open without looking at the caller ID. "H-hello?"

"Sam, where the_ hell_ have you been?" It was her boss at the Skulk and Lurk bookstore. "You can't just walk out in the middle of your shift! Who do you think you are?" The rage in the man's normally emotionless voice was clearly evident.

"Look—I-I'm sorry! There was an emergency..." She tried to explain.

"I don't care! Get your butt back here right now! If you're not here in 10 minutes, YOU'RE FIRED!" He then hung up with a small _click_.

Sam sighed deeply, grudgingly closed and put her cell phone away, then stepped back into the room. "Guys, that was my boss. He says he's going to fire me if I don't get back to work in 10 minutes. I'm sorry." She reluctantly turned and made her exit.

Farther down the hallway, as the doors of the elevator slid open, however, a wave of reporters came rushing out, including from the one Sam was about to board.

To put it lightly, they almost ran her down in their haste to get to a certain room 413. As Sam slowly recovered from the sudden onslaught and entered the elevator, she thought, _Those reporters are going to get the surprise of a lifetime..._

Meanwhile, back in Danny's hospital room, a very large and still growing group of rabid reporters was attempting to break down the door. The combined weight of Jack, Maddie, and Jazz were barely holding them at bay. Haku was standing behind the small group, facing Danny.

"Do you want me to chase them off, Master?" He asked, pulling out four senbon in his right hand, holding them up.

Danny simply stared, his mouth closed. _Wait...Did he just call me 'master'? _He thought for a moment on what Sam had said about Haku. _If he's serious...Well, it couldn't hurt..._

"Um... Let _one_ in, and get the rest out of here." The halfa ordered, starting to take advantage of his newfound power. _But if this turns out to be like on all those shows when a character is saved by another character and they're 'in their debt'... _

"As you wish, but which one, sir?" Haku asked him, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head.

"Err...It doesn't really matter to me; you can pick anyone."

"Yes sir." He bowed and phased through the wall into the crowd of reporters.

He was suddenly assaulted by what must have been hundreds of camera flashes, and maybe thousands of questions, ranging from "Who are you?" to "Do you have any information of Mr. Phantom's condition so far?"

He ignored all of them, or course, and yelled, "Silence!" Surprisingly, they all fell silent. "Alright!" he projected his voice into the hallways now filled with people. "This is how it's going to work: I pick _one _person to come inside. The rest of you, _get out_! Any objections, I'll _make_ you get out! Understood?"

There were a few "yes's" from the crowd as Haku slowly levitated above them with his feet mere inches from some peoples' heads, scanning the reporters.

After a few minutes, he lifted his right index finger and pointed to a girl no older than 25 years old. "You."

She pointed at her chest in a "Me?" gesture. Haku merely nodded in reply. As the girl pushed through the now parting group, a few murmurs of complaint reverberated throughout the room. A quick glare from Haku's cold and deadly eyes silenced them immediately.

Haku landed by the door just as the young reporter made it through the crowd. As he grabbed her shoulder with his left hand, preparing to phase back through the wall, he took his hood off with his free hand, turned his head around, and said to the other reporters, "Well?"

Most of the reporters left without saying another word, but a group of about ten stayed behind. "We are _not_ going to take orders from some lowlife ghost who thinks he can tell us what to do!" The apparent leader stated, pointing at Haku.

Haku released his grip on the girl's shoulder, turned around completely, and said, "I'll give you one more warning. Get out, or I'll be forced to make you." His voice was emotionless, but had an underlying edge of steel to it. He reached from under his cloak and brought out four needles in his right hand.

"Oh, what are you going to do, _knit _me something?" The reporter mocked, growing more cocky and confident as his colleagues laughed at Haku.

_You just made a _big_ mistake._ A fraction of a second later, the over-cocky reporter was lying on the tile floor, all four senbon piercing straight through his neck. His eyes seemed to stare blankly ahead, but no blood was coming out his mouth.

"Anyone else want to challenge me?" The others, dead silent and staring down at the man's body in horror, quickly scattered. The girl, whose shoulder length brown hair and the camera around her neck were now clearly visible, stepped forward timidly and felt the other reporter's wrist for a pulse. When she felt nothing, she turned her head around and stared at Haku in shock.

"You- you killed him...J-just like that..."

Haku reached down and grasped her shoulder once more. "Don't worry—" he reassured her, "—it's only a death-like trance. He should wake up in about 4 days. Come."

She stood up slowly—still staring at the man—and followed Haku, finally managing to tear her eyes away from the unmoving body. As the two entered via phasing through the wall, Jack, Maddie and Jazz released their holds on the door.

"So, they're gone?" Jazz asked.

"For the most part. A few wouldn't leave quietly, so..." Haku trailed off, realizing that Jazz wasn't listening anymore. She already had her hand on the doorknob, attempting to unlock it. For a few moments, it didn't budge. When Jazz finally managed to yank it open, she screamed at the sight that beheld her.

"_You killed him_?" Jazz cried, horrified, backing up into Jack and Maddie, who were also staring at the needle-pierced body. They had just witnessed their first display of what exactly Haku was capable of.

"Oh, my..." Maddie had her hand over her mouth slightly, too shocked to finish her sentence.

"What?" Danny once again tried to sit up, but quickly lay back down in pain. He turned his head to Haku. "_Why _did you _kill_ him?"

Jack, Maddie, Jazz, and Danny all glared at Haku, expecting an answer. He brought his hands up in self defense. "He'll wake up in a few days... Maybe longer, but he will wake up, I assure you..."

Maddie sighed. "We'll get him checked into a room." As she and Jack exited the room, she turned. "Jazz, are you coming?"

"I'll be out in a minute. One sec." She answered. When the door had closed on Jack and Maddie, Jazz turned to Haku, her right index finger less than an inch from his face. "You might have Danny feeling something that may resemble trust towards you—" she whispered harshly, gesturing to Danny (who was now preoccupied with question after question from the slightly overzealous reporter) with her other hand. "—but I know better than to think that you have any good intentions as to why you're here."

Haku reached up and grabbed Jazz's wrist—quite roughly—and brought it down to her side, still clutching it. He leaned over and spoke mindlessly into her ear, "I am but a tool for his use. Tools do not betray their owners." With that, he spun Jazz around, released her wrist, and lightly pushed her toward the door.

Jazz, slightly confused at what Haku had said, left without another word.

"So, what was that all about?" Danny turned his head away from the girl, glad to be momentarily free of questions.

Haku turned to face the halfa. "Your sister does not trust me."

Danny sighed. "She always has been a bit...overprotective. It's probably nothing personal, just that you're a ghost, and all."

"I see." He stared out the window. "In time, she may learn to trust me, but for now..." Haku trailed off, not knowing what to say next.

The silence that followed didn't last for very long, as the nosy reporter soon continued her onslaught of questions.

_This is going to be a _long _next few hours...

* * *

_

When at last, the unnamed girl had finally left with full notepads and recording tapes, Danny had felt a wave of relief wash over him. It didn't last, however, when Sam, finally freed from her job for the day, was forced to return home and face her doom at the hands of her parents. Jazz also had a job interview early the next morning, so she had to leave to get a good night's rest at home. So it was just him and Haku for the night, after Jack and Maddie had reluctantly gone home with Jazz after Danny had insisted that they also try and get some sleep. When they at last exited the room—still eyeing Haku nervously—Danny couldn't help but sigh. "Parents..."

The next few minutes passed in silence, only interrupted by the constant beeping of the heart monitor. Then a thought struck Danny. "Haku..."

Haku looked up from his glass of water that he had poured from the pitcher sitting on Danny's apparent nightstand. "Yes?" He took a small sip.

"What were your parents like?" Danny asked out of the blue.

Haku almost choked on the liquid at the unexpected question. After sputtering and coughing a few times, he looked up, stunned. "M-my parents?" He drew in a couple deep breaths. "My parents...It's, eh, a bit of a long story..."

"We have time." Danny desperately wanted to know what the ghost's past had been like.

Haku sighed. "I guess I should start from the beginning." He put down his glass on a nearby table. "My ability to move incredibly fast is the result of a _Kekei Genkai_, or a special bloodline trait passed down through the generations. Before I was born, war had broken out between the Land of Mist and its neighboring countries, and the people with these traits were used as mercenaries, assassins, soldiers, etc. Bottom line, they all killed thousands. They had been the perfect weapons. But when peace finally came, they were all seen as monsters, and were hunted down and killed. Only those who could keep it a very deep and dark secret managed to survive. My mother was one of them.

"Although she had never told me I had this gift, I found out on my own one winter's day that I could do this: " He walked back over to his glass of water and held his hand above it. His hand quivering slightly, the water in the glass started to slowly rise up out of the glass, eventually forming a bubble-like glob levitating above the ninja's now upturned hand. "However, when I went to show her, she slapped me and said to never do that ever again." He sighed. "But it was too late; my father had seen." He let the water flow back down into the glass cup, splashing his hand slightly in the process.

Haku shook off the liquid and continued. "That night, he and a few of his friends came and killed my mother. But when they came after me..." He seemed to stare off into space, trying to recall the event. "Something came over me...I don't know what exactly happened, but I know I killed them. All of them."

Apparently not noticing Danny's shocked expression, Haku continued his monologue, pacing. "After that, I guess I just wandered the streets for a while. Weeks, months, it didn't really matter. Then Zabuza found me. He didn't see me as a monster; he didn't shun my skills, he exploited them. He saw me for what I truly was: a tool. A tool that would do anything and kill anyone it was told to. With him as my master, my life had a purpose: to help him achieve his dream of ruling over the Land of Mist as a conqueror." He balled his right hand into a fist in front of his face. "And that is the reason that I have come to serve you, Master." He turned his head to face the young halfa.

Danny still continued to stare in shock and disbelief. "You- you _killed_ your own _father_?"

"It was either me, or him. I chose myself." Haku once again picked up his glass of water and took another swig. "You probably would've done the same. Wouldn't you?"

Danny hadn't known how to respond to that. After a few moments of silence, Danny finally spoke up. "Err, Haku, um, I don't think you realize this yet, but...killing someone in this world, as opposed to your world, is one of the worst things you could get yourself caught up in..."

"I understand. I will not kill unless in a life or death situation. I will simply knock them unconscious." The ghost bowed deeply, then continued to take small sips of his drink.

_Looks like I'm not going to get any sleep after _that _story... _Danny thought, trying to will himself to rest. Surprisingly, after a few minutes, the halfa started to grow drowsy. It started to seem that with every passing breath, it became harder for him to keep his eyelids open. With each second, Danny slowly slipped away into unconsciousness.

The last coherent thing that registered in the teen's mind was a dull thud and glass shattering, for Haku had also fallen victim to this strange, artificial sleep.

"_Hey, he's waking up!" An ambient voice called from somewhere close by. _

_Danny managed to barely crack his eyes open, trying to take in his new surroundings. He gave out a slight groan as he tried to move, only to be held back by a gentle hand over his chest. _

"_Lie back down. Your feet might not be frostbitten anymore, but your ankle is still broken and you've lost a lot of blood." The mysterious voice was that of the girl from his earlier dream. _

_Danny obliged. His vision still blurry, he could barely make out the outline of the girl standing over him. "W-where am I?" His words slurred over each other, but were more or less understandable._

"_Don't worry. We're away from those demons, the Guys in White. You're safe now." The girl moved away from the halfa, letting him get a clear look at his surroundings. _

_Danny was lying on the floor of a medium-sized cavern, wrapped in what appeared to be a midnight blue wool blanket. A small flame flickered somewhere off to his right._

_The same ice blue gryphon as before was curled up in a ball on the other side of the flames, his eyes reflecting pain. Upon further scrutiny, he could see that the beast's left wing—the only one visible—had been bandaged up at the joint where it connected to its back, blue ectoplasm oozing through the gauze slightly._

_A few survival necessities—and a couple not so necessary—were propped against the walls, including__ a large notebook. It was open, but in the dim firelight, he couldn't tell if there was anything written on the page. _

_The strange girl was hovering over the fire, using a tiny ladle in order to stir the bubbling contents of a small, travel-sized metal pot sitting directly in the flames. "My name's Sheila, by the way." She said, now taking the pot off the direct flames. "What's yours?" _

"_D-Danny." He answered, stammering. Sheila carefully poured the searing liquid—stew—into the top of one of the two thermoses next to the fire, and offered it to the injured halfa. Danny once again tried to sit up in order to take it, and, gritting his teeth in pain, managed to prop himself into a sitting position on the cave walls. _

_As he outstretched his arms greedily for the steaming soup, his eyes caught the bandages wrapped around his arms and hands. Flexing his arms, he asked, "You did this?" _

_She nodded, smiled, and handed Danny the cup. "Your feet are fine now, too. Although, it had been murder to pry that wristband off." _

_While Danny started to sip the delicious stew, Sheila moved away to pour herself her own cup in the other thermos. Once she was done, she sat down from across Danny, the fire literally inches away from her back. That was when the halfa got his first real glimpse at what she looked like. _

_Her most distinguishing feature would probably have been her pitch-black hair, ending at about the middle of her back, and surprisingly neat. She was wearing a grey fur tunic on the outside, with a plain light brown leather sweater on the inside. Her boots were black leather and went up to about the middle of her calve, a buckled strap every inch or so. Her pants were also grey fur, tucked in behind the boots. _

_Despite all that, however, the things that seemed to almost hypnotize Danny were her eyes. The irises shined the color of icebergs standing in moonlight, refusing to reflect the firelight, but that alone was not what seemed to mystify the teen. She had no pupils. They seemed filmed over, almost like the ice in her eyes had crept up and veiled them from any light at all, as if they had become permanently frozen over. For a brief second, he thought,_ I wonder_ w_hy she doesn't have any pupils...? _before taking another gulp of the rich, meaty broth. _

_Seeming to read the halfa's mind again, the girl turned to him and answered, smiling mischievously. "I think I'll just keep that my little secret, now."_

_Danny sighed, knowing he will not get a clear answer. "Okay, then. But, how can you know what I'm thinking? It seems like you can read my mind or something." _

I'm afraid I'm the one who's the telepath here, not Sheila. _A new voice entered Danny's mind, startling him a little. _

"_W-who said that?" The young halfa cried, glancing around frantically._

_Sheila chuckled lightly. "Don't worry, that's just ol' Gyl. He's a telepath; all gryphons are." _

_The large beast slowly rose from his spot on the ground and heavily made his way over to them. _

_From this close up, Danny could see several other cuts and a couple more gashes on the beast's legs and chest. At the sight of this, the half-ghost hissed and grimaced. _

"_We might've gotten away, but the Guys in White really did a number on him." Sheila put down her soup and reached out a tender hand to Gyl's injuries. "I sure hope they don't get infected." _

_For a moment, all was silent._

"_You only _think _you got away!" Suddenly, the same ten soldiers who had been chasing them earlier reappeared out of seemingly thin air. _

_Before anyone could even think, Gyl had been lying on the floor, writhing and screaming in pain, Sheila had been smacked upside the head and knocked unconscious, and Danny was being restrained by two guards, while a third—the same one that had shot him earlier—injected the contents of a syringe into his shoulder. _

"_Sleep, boy, sleep." The black-haired Operative leered, "When you wake up, you'll be right back in the place you tried to escape from!" _

Danny slowly opened his eyes, trying to make sense of the figures standing over him.

"So, the mighty Danny Phantom awakens. Not so cocky now, are you?" One of the blurry figures leered.

Danny instantly recognized it as Operative O's voice. _Oh no..._ The halfa shot his head up, now fully alert, and stared in fear at what he saw.

He was currently chained by his right wrist and ankle to a hospital bed, surrounded by GIW agents. They had managed to swap out his hospital gown for a black prisoner's uniform, with Velcro straps running down the pant legs, the sleeves, and—the way it felt—down his chest and back. The bandages over his left eye, as well as his arm and leg, were still present, although now covered up by the black fabric. He could tell he was still in the same room, only now surrounded by Guys in White Operatives, all with guns charged and ready to fire if necessary.

All the agents laughed evilly at Danny's surprise and horror. "For the next four months, _Welcome to Hell, Ghost Boy_!" Operative K yelled, making the others laugh harder, in sinister, sadistic cackles.

Including the black-haired, black-eyed man from his dream.

* * *

Yes! The chapter's done! This was even longer than the last one!

Well, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukkah in Sam's case) and a Happy New Year! Yay 2008!

I don't know when I'll next update, but I hope it'll be ready soon! Byes!


	9. Chapter 9

_*Chapter edited September 6, 2010.

* * *

_

I'm soooooooooo sorry it took me a month to update! I kinda had writer's block here...

Chapter Nine: Hell

_Oh, my head..._

Haku slowly cracked his eyes open, only to shut them against the blinding florescent lights shining overhead. After his eyes adjusted, he opened them completely, and, to his horror, was staring directly into the eyes of about fifteen different GIW Operatives, all with ecto-guns pointing at his head.

His horror quickly dissolved into rage, however, as the ninja attempted to sit up from his position, but found he couldn't. _What the..._ He realized he was strapped down to a ghost-proof table, and felt...unusually tired. All his old clothes were gone; in their place was the same type of black prisoner's uniform that Danny wore, only bigger. Eyes now half-laden, the ghost looked down at the restraints keeping his hands pinned to his side. _Oh, _shit. He cursed to himself silently. _This will end badly..._

One of the agents' voices brought his head up. "You are hereby convicted to four months of experimentation by us, which will end in a very painful dissection when we have no more use of you. And don't even _think _of escaping, here. Any attempt at all and you will be punished severely." He said authoritatively, standing over Haku without an ecto-gun.

"And what makes you think I won't succeed?" Haku lashed back, although the tiredness in his voice made it sound much less threatening.

Despite that, the GIW agents knew that he could still very easily escape under any normal circumstances. "We're not going to take any chances with you." The same agent as before answered, leaning in closer so he was right above Haku's face. "You have been given enough sedatives to the point where you're barely conscious, so if you had planned on using your little 'ability' to escape, then you're sadly mistaken."

Another agent—obviously a scientist, as he didn't have an ecto-gun—stepped forward and tapped one of Haku's arm restraints. "Also," He began, "the inside of the cuffs are made of specially treated ectoranium, which, when brought into contact with a ghost's skin, does this:" He flicked a switch on the underside of the table.

Instantly, Haku's shrieks of pain filled the room. A second later, they quieted down into panting as the agent took his hand off the knob. "Hmm, interesting..." Another scientist commented, scribbling something down onto the clipboard he was holding. "Any other ghost would've felt pain for at _least_ five minutes after the initial shock..."

But Haku was no longer listening; he had been caught up in his own thoughts. _You _never_ underestimate your opponent. EVER! Idiot, how could I have been so stupid? And now I'm paying for it... me _and_ Master..._

One of the scientists gestured to the soldiers. "Alright, men. Return to your stations so we may begin our work." All the agents carrying ecto-guns dispersed to their positions on the walls, revealing a large white laboratory with computers, ecto-guns, and other assorted bits of technology lining the walls.

A group of seven scientists stepped forward and stood around the metal table. Two of them were holding clipboards, while the other five prepared for the experiment.

For the first time since his father had tried to kill him, Haku felt fear. Pure, mind-numbing, paralyzing fear. The kind that would make any normal person's hair stand on end, with the cliché chill going down their spine.

Haku's screams soon once again filled the room as the agents began their so-called 'work'.

* * *

_Why me? _

Those two words kept repeating themselves over and over in Danny's mind as he banged his head slightly against the cold ghost-proof metal walls of the GIW containment vehicle, the vibrations from the engine thrumming through his head. _Why had I ever gone into that stupid portal in the first place? I should've never listened to Sam... _A single tear fell from his right eye. Unable to wipe it away—his hands had been bound securely behind his back—it was all he could do to let the tear fall, leaving a wet shining streak down his face.

The last week that he had spent at Amity Hospital had been awful, to say the least. Three times a day, he was forced to watch as all the operatives ate their meals brought in from the cafeteria, while he got next to nothing. What had made it even worse, though, was that strangely familiar black-haired Operative, who he now knew to be Operative N. The hafla knew he had seen him before, from somewhere...He just couldn't place where. But what had made Danny hate him so much already was that he seemed to take extra relish in torturing him. Every day, while they were eating, he would hold a piece of his food out in front of Danny's face, just out of reach; taunting him with it.

But he knew that that was nothing compared to what he was going to face once they arrived at the Amity Park Branch of the Guys in White, or—as the Ghost Zone simply referred to it as—Hell.

Danny could only imagine what Sam or his family was thinking right now. He didn't know if Tucker knew his secret had been revealed yet, as he had told him the morning he left for Colorado that his relatives forbade the use of any technology at all.

The half-ghost sighed, knowing that it didn't really matter in his current situation. It was all he could do to press his forehead against the cold walls of the vehicle, remembering one of the conversations he had had with Operative O and K a few days prior.

_

* * *

_

_It had been the middle of the day, and, if Danny remembered correctly, Op. K and O had been sitting in the chairs across from him, while the other eight guards sat along the walls. Fortunately, Operative N had just changed shifts, so he had not been present. _

"_Your parents aren't here to protect you anymore, _Phantom_." Operative O sneered, trying to get Danny angry, as they were all bored on duty and needed a little entertainment. _

_Danny only lifted his head up in response, glaring at the two with his one useful eye. "Whatever you have to say, I'm not listening!" He leaned his head back down on the now pillow-less bed. _

_Op. K stood up from his seat, walked the short distance to Danny's bed, and stared down at him. "Why, don't you want to know how they abandoned you? How they turned you over to us?"_

"_You-you're lying! They would never have..." Danny began to trail off, starting to doubt his own words even as he said them. The halfa turned his head away, trying to ignore the next phrase that came out of Op. K's mouth. _

"_If your parents had cared about you so much, then why had they signed _this_?" He pulled a copy of the contract from under his suit, and held it out so he could read it. _

_Danny, upon hearing a piece of paper held on the other side of him, slowly turned his head back until the parchment was in his line of vision. The halfa's eyes started to widen in horror as he read more and more. _

_Op. O laughed from the other side of the room. "You see? They only wanted those two ghosts we'd promised them! They could've cared less about you!" He threw his head back and laughed even harder. _

"_Yes, well, even if they had..." Op. K began as he once again hid the contract under his suit. "...it doesn't matter." As he walked backed to his eat, he turned his bald head to Danny. "You're still our little lab rat for the next four months!" _

_The laughter from all the other agents filled the room.  
_

_

* * *

_

Suddenly, the vehicle hit a large pothole, resulting in Danny—who had been in a kneeling position—loosing what little balance he had to begin with, and toppling backwards rather violently. He skidded on his back all the way to the other wall and hit his head with a dull thud.

"Ow..." The halfa groaned, trying to sit up as best he could, given the circumstances. Without warning, however, Op. N—who had been standing along the wall, guarding him—walked over to Danny, grabbed his shoulder, and half-pushed half-threw him back to the other wall.

Danny yelped slightly at the sudden movement, his shackled feet trying to steady him before he hit solid metal. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful. The halfa slid back down to his previous position, hoping that Op. N won't do anything else.

Luckily for him, he hadn't, causing a small bit of relief to wash over the halfa for a brief second. Unfortunately, though, it didn't last long, as the small truck rolled to a halt, and with it the engine's constant vibrations.

_Well...I guess we're here..._ The halfa gulped. _Time to face... _He mentally cringed at the thought of what the Guys in White were probably about to put him through. _...questioning and lots and lots of really painful experiments..._

The thick, reinforced double doors to the containment vehicle came open with the loud high-pitched squeak of metal on metal. As Op. N, O, and K, hauled him out, Danny had expected to be standing in the parking lot of the massive building, hoping to get his last glimpse of sunlight for a while. He was mistaken.

They were all standing in the middle of what amounted to a large garage. Office-style florescent lights hung from the ceiling, revealing somewhere around twenty other containment vehicles parked neatly along the walls. Heavy, reinforced—and probably ghost-proof as well—steel sliding doors took up the far wall a good 30 feet away.

As the three agents led a barefoot Danny through a door equipped with a ten-digit security code, a retinal scanner, and a key card reader, Op. N locked a blue-glowing metal collar onto the halfa's neck. The collar had about a two foot-long chain welded to the back, the other end of which was connected to a locked armband currently attached to the agent's wrist.

_Oh, _this _will be interesting..._ Danny thought half-heartily, knowing it really wasn't all that funny.

Apparently, the agent's first order of business so far was to grab the top of Danny's head and push it down until the only things in the halfa's line of sight were spotless white tiles. When he let go, Danny thought it best to just keep his head down.

They continued on down a narrow hallway, through another similarly equipped door, and into what appeared to be—by the look of the cells lining the walls—the central containment room.

Suddenly, and without warning, an all-too-familiar battle cry split the air. "I am the Box Ghost! No cylindrical shackles can hold me! I am—" The Box Ghost was cut off by two non-operative guards electrocuting him.

"Yeah yeah. No cylinder can hold you blah blah blah. Well then, try escaping from a box!" One of the guards said through his armored headset. They both threw him into a nearby cell, the overall-wearing ghost screaming in pain the entire time.

_I was _wondering _where the box ghost had gone these last few weeks... _Danny had shot his head back up in order to witness the event, and couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for the annoying ghost. His thoughts were cut short, however, by Op. N once again twisting his head back down to stare at the floor.

Eventually, the group walked into a smaller and darker room. It contained, from what Danny could see, the legs of two chairs and a thick steel table. Op. O and K stood guard on each side their entrance point, while Op. N led him over to one of the chairs.

"Sit down." The young agent ordered sternly, his voice seemed to have been laced with hatred.

Danny obediently sat down in one of the chairs, knowing this wouldn't end well. Immediately, ghost-proof metal bands secured his—still shackled, by the way—ankles to the chair's legs. Chains wrapped around his arms—which were also still bound behind his back—as well, making him practically immobile. The halfa's first reflex was to struggle, but, finding they wouldn't budge, soon gave up, glaring at the man sitting across from him.

He appeared to be just another Operative, only bigger, but he wasn't. Hispanic features with an expensive-looking beard, he was the head of this building and did not take 'no' for an answer. Much of the Ghost Zone referred to him as "The most evil and ruthless ghost hunter on the planet."

"So, the almighty Danny Phantom has at last been caught. Not so over confidant now, are ya?" He sneered, taking his once propped up feet off the table. "I see you've already met Operative N." He gestured to said agent, who had been standing behind Danny. "He will serve as your guard."

As the agent continued his briefing on the rules and how escape is impossible, Danny was lost in his own thoughts. _Please don't have me hooked up to a lie detector! Please don't have me hooked up to a lie detector! Please! _

"Alright. Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to business." He picked up a clipboard and took a pen out of his pocket. "How did you become half-ghost in the first place? Oh, and don't try and lie; you're hooked up to a lie detector."

_Ah, crap..._ Danny's heart rate started to increase. _Okay. Don't panic... just tell them the truth for some things...And not for other things and hope that the lie detector's wrong... _

"Umm..." The next few minutes consisted of Danny explaining everything about the portal, conveniently leaving out the part concerning Sam and Tucker.

"Hmm... interesting. Alright, then." The Head Operative finished scribbling something down. "Next question: Are there any others like you?"

That was when Danny realized that he could tell them everything about Vlad, as his secret was already out. "There's one other...his name...is Vlad Masters." _Please don't laugh...Please don't laugh... _

Unfortunately, they all did. "What? It's true!" Danny countered, mortified.

"You expect us to believe that the mayor of Amity Park is half-ghost?" The Head Operative said, his head thrown back in laughter.

"How do you think he got all his money? How do you think he won in the election by 97 percent? Who do you think baffled Wisconsin police some years back with a series of invisible bank robberies?" The halfa retorted.

This made them all fall silent, as the results from the lie detector came back positive; he was telling the truth. The Head Operative, however, was still skeptic. "Okay, then. If he was _really_ half-ghost, then how did he get that way?"

"Same way I did: A portal blew up in his face. He got ecto-acne, and, invariably, ghost powers."

The agent sighed grudgingly when he saw that, once again, the results were positive. Brows furrowed, he continued. "Well, is there anyone _else_ that's a half-ghost half-human hybrid?"

_That _made Danny's blood run cold. _Don't rat out Dani! Don't rat out Dani! Don't rat out Dani! They'll kill her! They'll kill her! _"N-no one. It's just us two." He tried to keep his voice as even as possible, but to no avail.

The Head Operative looked at the small computer screen under the desk that read out the results. He looked up, a fake smile plastered onto his face. "Well, Mr. Fenton, it appears that you are one of the _worst_ liars I have ever seen." His smile vanished, the agent's voice turning serious. "Now tell truth. Who. Is. The. Third. Halfa?"

Beads of sweat began to form on the halfa's forehead. _Oh no... _Danny _really_ didn't want to know what kind of torture they were capable of, much less experience it, but he had to, for Danielle's sake.

Taking Danny's silence for a 'no', the agent continued. "Alright then. Seeing as how you're not cooperating with us, then I'm afraid we'll have to make you talk." The GIW agent gestured toward a door along the wall that Danny had previously missed. "Start with a minute; that should be enough." He pressed a button on the underside of the table, releasing the chains binding Danny to the chair.

Immediately, Operative N hauled him up out of it by the shoulders, and dragged him over to the door.

It really hadn't been all that special. Just a five-digit security code lock keeping it shut, with a white sign at the top that had "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" written in bold, red letters.

As the agent quickly punched in the code and pried it open, however, Danny was more nervous than ever. While the halfa was staring in horror at what lay behind the door—four glowing electric blue restraints attached to the floor by a chain, with the floor, walls, and ceiling coated in a strange neon green substance with flecks of electric blue inlaid into it—Operative N had pulled out a remote control with a key attached to one end.

The remote control bore only three buttons: a green one nearest the key, then a red one in the middle, along with a blue one at the very bottom. In one fluid motion, he tore open the Velcro straps on the back of Danny's uniform, pressed the blue switch—unlocking all of Danny's chains—and shoved him as hard as he could into the room.

The young half-ghost had hoped for a fleeting second that whatever was coating the walls wasn't what he thought it was. Unfortunately, he was right; it was ectoranium.

The instant that Danny came within range of the cuffs, they jumped up, grabbed onto him and dragged him down to the floor. The halfa let out an ear-shattering scream when his now exposed back came in contact with the ectoranium-coated tiles.

"Have fun!" And with that, Op. N slammed the door shut.

His comment didn't even register. Violent, searing, blinding _pain_ was all Danny felt. This was worse than his parents' acid, worse than Vlad's morph chamber, and Valerie's electrocution barely registered on the scale.

His ear-piercing shrieks continued to echo off the walls, but none of them could so much as breach the soundproof chamber...

* * *

Exactly one minute later, Danny was sitting back in the interrogation room, twitching uncontrollably.

"Now, do you want to go _back_ in there for _another _few minutes or _more_?" The Head Operative's voice was dripping with poorly hidden impatience, under a thin mask of sweetness.

It was all Danny could do to shake his head in desperation.

Elbows on the table and fingers meshed, the agent leaned forward. "Well, then I suggest that _you cooperate with us_!" He pounded his enormous hand down on the ghost-proof metal, creating a small dent.

Danny was torn. He couldn't tell them about Danielle. That he knew. But...Spending the next hour or so in ectoranium...wasn't looking to be all that unlikely at this point.

_Danielle...I hope you forgive me...That is, if you even get the chance..._

"Okay... H-her name...Is Danielle." The next five minutes consisted of Danny's monologue explaining everything; how she had been created by Vlad, _why_ she had been created, how Valerie fit into everything, that whole business with the ecto-dejecto, _everything_.

The Head Operative smiled. "Now, see what happens when you cooperate with us? You don't get tortured!" he exclaimed in a _way_ too chipper tone, having finished writing all that Danny had said. "Now, moving on..." His voice turned serious. "Did anyone else other than yourself know about your powers?"

_Ahh...Crap..._

Hours later, Op. K, O, and N were hauling a violently twitching Danny by the shoulders toward his designated cell.

_I will never... Stop... Twitching..._The half-ghost thought, groaning in agony. Looking up at the oncoming cell door, he thought dryly, _Does _every_ door in this place have the same amount of security?_

True, that door _did_ also have a retinal scanner, a 10-digit lock, and a card reader, but it appeared to be one of the higher-security cells, as most of the ones around him appeared to just have simple key locks.

Op. N opened all of them and, as his coworkers guarded the door, practically threw Danny into the cell, the collar around his neck the only thing that had kept him from slamming into the wall.

The agent entered the small enclosure, snapped the band off his wrist, locked it onto a small bar inlaid in the back wall of the room, and left without saying a word.

Danny slowly managed to curl himself up into a sitting position against the wall, his forehead pressing against the cold, ghost-proof steel that imprisoned him.

A few minutes passed before the young halfa heard a voice speak from behind him. "So...The Guys in White have finally stooped to just kidnapping kids off the streets now?"

Danny whirled around, causing a shock to go up his spine. The half-ghost winced, staring at the ghost that sat in front of him.

He was young, maybe only 13, and had short chocolate brown hair and turquoise eyes. He too wore a black uniform, manacles and shackles binding his hands and feet together by a foot-long chain. Another collar was around his neck, connecting him to a similar looking bar at Danny's right. Like most ghosts, he had an aura and a slight greenish tinge to his skin, although that was the only way he could tell he was a ghost.

"Well? Aren't you going to answer?" The strange boy cocked his head.

Danny hadn't known how to answer that._ Aw, well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell him...After all, my secret's already out... _So, Danny took the time to explain the fact that he was the infamous Danny Phantom.

As soon as he had finished, the ghost burst out laughing in disbelief. "What? If I was really completely human, then why are _these_—" He thrust out his manacled arms, "—ghost-proof?"

"Hmmm...Good point..." He leaned forward as far as his own collar would allow, scrutinized Danny's features. "You two _do _look alike..." He leaned back against the wall and sighed. "I guess I believe you."

The ghost extended a hand out to Danny. "My name's Joey. What's your's?"

The halfa slowly reached out and shook Joey's hand in response. "Er...Danny."

The young ghost chuckled. "I kinda guessed that."

The next few minutes passed in uncomfortable silence. "So..." Danny began. "How long have you been here?"

Joey snorted. "A couple months, give or take."

"Umm...Just out of curiosity, how did you die?"

The ghost burst out laughing a hollow, emotionless laugh. "Die?" He shook his head, still laughing slightly. "I didn't die." He stared Danny right in the eyes; all joy vanished from his voice. "The Guys in White killed me."

* * *

Okay, sorry if this chapter was a bit...rushed. I'm in a really big hurry to get this up, as I have somewhere I need to be in an hour. Please review! I only got six for the last chapter... You'll get virtual cookies and cake!

Again, if any of you can guess who the character from Naruto Operative N is, then you get a nice preview of the next chappie! And, no, it is _not_ Sasuke! I never realized how many black-haired, black-eyed guys there are on Naruto...

Anyway, don't expect an update until sometime after Febuary 12...God I hate the Science Fair...

Oh! The next chapter is when the GIW confront Vlad!


	10. Chapter 10

_*Chapter edited September 6, 2010.

* * *

_

Woooo! Snow Day! I can finally get this up!

Ack! I forgot the disclaimer in the last chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or Naruto. There. Now I'm good.

Okay, now for _this_ chapter's disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I don't own DP, Naruto, Maximum Ride (which is where I got the experiment from), or—the other show that is being crossed over in this fic—Sorry, I'm not spoiling the whole chapter! You'll find out at the end.

* * *

Chapter Ten: Memories

"What?" Danny was stunned. He knew the Guys in White were horrible, but...killing a human? A _full_ human? The halfa's jaw dropped. "They-they _killed_ you?"

"Well, yes. Plowed right into me in one of their trucks. I never saw it coming...The last I remember before I died was tires screeching behind me..." Joey lay back into the wall of the cell, hands behind head.

"But-but, _why_?" Danny stuttered, staring at the teenage ghost with his one useful eye (the Guys in White had removed the bandage over his left eye a few days ago, only to reveal a radioactive-looking yellow iris and pupil).

"It was probably an accident, but...let's just say that my sister and I have never really gotten along with the Guys in White..." He leaned forward, chains shifting slightly. "I guess it all started about nine months ago..."

* * *

_It had been a brisk late September day, the trees nearby only just starting to turn into the golds and reds of autumn. An unusually cold wind had just come up from out of the north, forcing the two children walking alongside Amity Park's streets to zip up their jackets partway. _

_One of them, a girl around the age of eleven, stood further away from the road, on the right of the boy. Her midnight black hair swirled over her slightly downturned face in the wind, obscuring the view of her eyes. An ungloved hand did not reach up to brush the strands away, but instead kept its grip on the boy next to her.  
_

_The boy, obviously a slightly younger version of Joey, talked very little with the blind girl beside him, the both of them enjoying the peaceful silence._

_Suddenly, as they passed by a small alley, his sister's head shot up, ice blue eyes unmoving. "What was that?" She asked abruptly, having heard a slight rustling among the discarded bags of garbage. _

_Joey gave a quick glance around her shoulder down the alley. Turning back to her, he answered, "It was probably just a rat, Sheila." after seeing nothing. He lightly grasped her right shoulder and gestured back down the way they were heading. "Come on. We have to get home." She did not resist the gesture. _

_However, Sheila did not do so before casting a look over her shoulder, sightless eyes trying to see what lay down the alleyway. She began walking along with her brother, soon also dismissing it as just a rat. _

Wait...Help... _A voice, almost a whisper, called softly, seeming to come from inside her mind. _

"_What..." the young girl stopped in her tracks, forcing Joey to stop as well. Whipping around, eyes now wide in slight fear, she called, "W-who said that?" _

_Joey reached over and grabbed her shoulder once more. "Sheila, there's nothing there!" This caused her to lower her guard, but by now, even he doubted his own words. The boy stared down the seemingly empty alley._

_As if on cue, a slightly glowing blue bird head popped up among the piles of trash. Panic seemed evident on its face. _Please! Help me! Don't go!

_This time, both of them heard the creature. Staring at him for a moment, one of them finally spoke."B-but, y-you're a ghost!" Joey stammered. _

"_We-we're supposed to stay away from ghosts!" Sheila broke in, agreeing with her brother. "Th-they're dangerous!" _

Please! They're after me! I don't even know why! _The creature's voice sounded so childish, so innocent, so...frightened. It was hard for the two preteens to ignore or fear him._

"_Who's after you?" Joey questioned the tiny creature. _

_As the still partially hidden ghost was about to respond, however, Operative K and O appeared from above a nearby building, jet packs spitting out a stream of blue flame. At the sight of them, the critter leaped out of his hiding place and, in a burst of ice and midnight blue feathers, plunged straight into the top, unzipped folds of Sheila's jacket. There he remained, head poking up, staring out in horror as the two agents landed gracelessly on the concrete pavement ahead. _

_Subconsciously, the young girl reached up with her arms in both complete surprise and in order to hold the foot long, shivering body up. _What's going _on_? _She wondered, wishing for the millionth time in her life that she could see. _

I don't know either! They just started chasing me for no reason! _The strange creature's voice echoed in her mind, its body continuing to shiver even in the young girl's warm arms._

_Operative K reached out a hand to Sheila, a fake smile plastered on the agent's face. "Now, now, little girl, just hand over the ghost and we won't have a problem." _

"_N-no!" She took a step back, frightened by the GIW worker. "I won't let you take him!" The girl felt that the ghost she held had no ill intensions._

_In response, Op. O stepped forward and grabbed the blind girl's sleeve, despite her attempts to escape. "Listen, girl! We can do this the easy way, or the hard way! Now hand it over!" _

_Sheila thrashed against the agent's grasp, but to no avail. "Leave my sister alone!" Joey came up from behind the two Operatives in an attempt to make them let go. _

_However, Operative K simply grabbed Joey's arm and pushed him down to the pavement, causing his head to slam onto the concrete. Luckily, the small absence of two strong arms allowed Sheila enough time and room to break free of Op. O's grasp, and she took off down the sidewalk. _

"_Run! I'll be fine!" Joey called after two agents soon forgot about the boy in front of them and bolted down the street in pursuit.

* * *

_

"I can't really remember what happened after that. It all seems so foggy. I think I got a minor concussion when I fell. Maybe that's why..." Joey rubbed the back of his head, trying to recall the rest of the event. "But somehow we managed to convince the Guys in White to let the little guy stay with us. Later, after getting a good look at him, my sister and I found that he was a gryphon, and he tols us his name was Gyl. But that's not really important anymore." The thirteen-year-old ghost sighed, eyes downcast. "So, long story short, that's probably why the Guys in White ran me over with a truck."

"Okay..." _That makes _two_ interesting stories in one week..._ Danny thought bitterly.

The next few moments passed in silence, before the heavy door to the cell creaked open. Standing in the doorway, Operative N wore a sadistic smile on his face. Reaching under his suit, he pulled out the remote control to Danny's chains and strolled nonchalantly over to the halfa. Unlocking the cuff that connected him to the wall, the agent snapped it onto his own wrist and literally dragged the teen out the cell. Nearly strangling himself in the process, the young half-ghost managed push himself onto his feet on the way out of the tiny enclosure. Op. K and O were waiting on both sides of the entrance.

_Well, I guess let the torture begin..._He thought bitterly as the three agents led him into one of the facility's many, many laboratories.

* * *

Vlad Masters sat calmly in a large, expensive and very luxurious chair, petting his fat snow-white cat, Maddie. His face bore a sinister grin, as he knew Daniel had been carted off for experimentation a few days prior.

"Ah, Maddie, it seems my plan is working even better than I'd hoped. Not only is young Daniel out of the way, but Maddie, stricken with grief at the loss of her son, and soon to be the loss of her husband as well, she won't have any other choice but to come to me. And there's no one to stop me! Ha!" He threw his head back and laughed evilly.

Without warning, though, a GIW tank made the entire wall to his left cave in. Close to thirty soldiers—including Op. K and O—stormed in behind it, all with guns blazing.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" The half-ghost screamed, bolting out of his seat. Maddie meowed harshly and dissappeared through an open door.

Op. O stepped forward, his gun still trained on the halfa. "Vlad Masters, in accordance with the federal anti-ecto control act, article one section one subsection A, you're under arrest!"

_Oh, it appears my plan has backfired. Young Daniel seems to have ratted me out... _Vlad stepped forward. "And what _proof_ do you have of any of this?"

Op. K lowered his ecto-gun and also stepped forward, holding out a sheet of paper. "Yes, in fact, we do." Turning his head to face the sheet, the agent continued. "According to this, your DNA is coated in ectoplasm." Once again glaring at Vlad, the GIW worker rolled up the test results and stowed them away under his suit.

"And how do you know if those are accurate? They were probably contaminated with ghost DNA in that hellhole you call an experiment facility!" Vlad replied, crossing his arms.

"Well, then, you have nothing to fear. If you just come with us, then we can verify whether or not you're half-ghost. If you really _are_ human, then you'll be free to go. If you _really_ have nothing to hide, then I suggest that you come with us so we can get this straightened out. Now, are you going to come with us willingly, or will we have to force you?"

At that, the rich halfa threw his head back and laughed. "Do you think you can really take me _that_ easily?" He transformed right in front of their eyes, causing a wave of gasps to ripple through the crowd. Still laughing, the vampire-like ghost took to the air. "Go on. Take your best shot." He taunted, cracking his neck loudly.

"TAKE HIM DOWN!" Operative K and O ordered in unison, pulling out their own weapons.

Ecto-blasts and missiles shot through the air, all aimed directly at the middle-aged halfa. Vlad simply brought up a shield and deflected everything, as if the bolts of ecto-energy meant to incinerate anything they touched were nothing. "Is that the _best _you can do? Pathetic!" He began to sink through the floor, no doubt heading to his subterranean lab. "Ta ta."

Op. K turned to the other soldiers. "Where are the intangibility suits?"

One soldier stepped forward, shaking nervously. "Th-there aren't any, sir. We didn't bring them..."

"What?"

Meanwhile, Vlad was down in his lab, typing furiously onto a keypad. "Dammit. All this work..." He said, hitting the 'enter' switch. Suddenly, a Maddie hologram appeared next to him.

"Portal set to self destruct in 30 seconds, oh Future Ruler of the Earth." The hologram stated, an impossible smile on its face.

"Thank you, Maddie. I appreciate your help this last year and a half, but I'm afraid you must be destroyed as well. I'm terribly sorry." With that, Vlad stepped through his portal for the last time, content on hiding out in the Ghost Zone for a while. He considered maybe even settling down with a lair.

The middle-aged halfa heard a large explosion coming through his end of the portal, knowing the Guys in White won't be able to follow _him_ any time soon.

* * *

"I still don't know how neither of us ever noticed anything!" The real Maddie cried, face in hands.

Jack remained silent, continuing to simply stare into the living room carpet, as if it held all their answers.

For the last few days, ever since the Guys in White took custody of Danny, Jazz had holed herself up in her bedroom, refusing to talk with anyone. The only times the two ghost hunters had seen her since then were the few minutes a day she would run down to the kitchen, grab a snack, then disappear into her room once more.

They had heard nothing from Sam or Tucker. However, the phone had been ringing non-stop for the last day and a half. Reporters had already broken down the door twice, all of them wanting to know they were reacting to the fact that their son who is not _only_ the Ghost Kid, but had just been dragged away for government experiments. The couple ignored the questions of course, but it hadn't made much difference. This was the only moment of peace they'd had throughout this entire ordeal, but to Jack it seemed worse than facing the reporters.

"I-I don't know." The middle-aged ghost hunter finally answered, not looking up. "It all seems so obvious, how it explains everything."

"_I call it, the boooomerang! It locks into a ghost's unique ecto signature and seeks it out wherever it goes!" Jack bellowed, proud of his new invention. The boooomerang circled around in the adjacent room before flying back, only to come in contact with the back of Danny's head. _

"_Although why it's keying in to Danny is_ way_ beyond me." Maddie wondered, taking the invention in her hands._

_Because he _was_ a ghost, you idiot!_ Maddie berated herself. _And no wonder he was trying to avoid me in the Rockies..._

_Maddie reached her hand down over Danny's, pressing it lightly against the log. A few green sparks subsequently jumped over from Maddie and into him, causing the young halfa to recoil the limb in pain. "Yah, ow, oh, okay, stop touching me!"_

_I was hurting him... _She felt her heart begin break in shame. _And when I put it _on _him...That must have been unbearably painful...I'm surprised he didn't just fall over screaming..._

Jack was undergoing a similar guilt trip, although not of the same magnitude.

_Jack looked down at the newspaper in disgust. "Oh, would you look at this nonsense! 'Danny Phantom Saves Kids'!"_

_Maddie looked up from the large machine in front of her, agreeing with her husband. "That's the fifth 'heroic' act this week!"_

_Jazz, who was leaning against a nearby table, didn't register the note of sarcasm in her voice. "At least that we know about." _

"_He keeps this up, people are going to forget he's nothing but a putrid, rancid, ball of self-aware protoplasm!" Jack pounded his fist down on the table. _

_Jazz took the newspaper out of the ghost hunter's hand and began to cut out the article. "Rancid protoplasm or not, I think it's great how he saved those kids." She carefully glued it into the scrapbook lying on the floor. _

"_Don't be fooled, sweetie, he's up to something." Maddie interjected. "Like the time he attacked the mayor, or stole everyone's Christmas presents. Once a filthy ghost, _always_ a filthy ghost!" She punched her fist into the air above her. _

_I can't believe I had said that about him...Well, actually, I can...But that's not the point, is it? _Jack wondered, not expecting an answer to his slight question.

"It explains everything...How he always missed his curfew, his grades, the fact that they were never seen together...It all makes sense..." Maddie whispered, not making eye contact with Jack, who had finally looked up.

"But, what about those two times we _did_ see them together? What then?" Jack choked out.

"I don't know either, Jack. I don't know." Maddie replied. "We probably won't until Danny gets...back...from..." She trailed off, neither of them wanting to hear the end of her sentence.

_From the Guys in White's custody. Not for four months... _They both thought in unison. _Four months of guilt and shame...Four months of avoiding reporters... _

_...Four months of knowing our own son is being tortured and experimented on, and it's all our fault.

* * *

_

Valerie was trapped.

Not in the literal sense, or course, but it was certainly how she felt. _Three and a half million dollars..._ Of the original $4 million, $500,000 had been used to pay off all her father's debts, some stowed away for college money, and for them to move back into an actual house again. Apparently, they had also mysteriously received no notices from the IRS concerning luxury taxes, either, so the four million dollars _was_, actually, _four million dollars_, instead of $4 million minus a 30 percent tax. But still, the amount was staggering, and the young ghost hunter had absolutely no idea what the heck to do with it.

Her father had not wanted her to use the rest of the money, but instead just give to charity. She had agreed with him, hoping to make the incredible guilt that had settled over her go away. She knew she would never stop regretting the act she had done, both with torturing Danny and revealing his identity to the Guys in White, but at least it might've helped. Unfortunately, Valerie could not bring herself to donate the money. Something inside her, maybe a sixth sense, told her that she would need it in the future.

And that sense was very, very right.

* * *

_Oh, Danny..._

Sam lay in the shadow of a large oak tree about half a mile outside of town, a nervous wreck. She had been there for most of the day, after she had gotten into a heated argument with her parents concerning how they were glad Danny was finally gone for good-as far as they knew, anyway. Sam had conveniently left out the part that he'd be back on October 27th. She eventually stormed out of the house, furious, and had walked all the way out here, where she knew she wouldn't be bothered.

It didn't appear to be all that special, just a small meadow clearing in the middle of the woods with a stream running along the north end, but to her and Danny, it was the one place they could go where Tucker couldn't follow. It was for that very reason that they made their very first real kiss together on this spot, sitting right where Sam was laying now. The two had discovered this place last winter in the middle of the night, when almost two feet of snow had enshrouded everything in a glistening, silvery powder. For a New Year's celebration, he had taken her out for a midnight flight outside town, and almost stumbled upon it. Ever since then, Sam would come here whenever she felt angry or needed to be alone. Normally, the sound of the stream gurgling and birds chirping into the hot and humid summer air would calm her nerves, but today it only made it worse.

A few sweat droplets started to form on her forehead, only to be brushed away immediately. _Oh Danny..._ The goth teen took a ring off her finger and held if out in front of her. She traced her index fingernail along the cheaply inlaid gemstone and the name 'Sam' carved into the semi-precious metal, thinking about all that has gone on for the last week. _Please come back in one piece...Physically _and_ mentally..._

Despite the heat, she shivered at the thought of what the Guys in White were putting him through right now. _Please, Danny. Please..._

But in the back of her mind, Sam knew it was all just a cry in vain.

* * *

_Need...Water... _

Danny's ragged breathing filled the room as he sprinted endlessly on a treadmill. _'Any attempt to stop and you will be shocked severely.' They said. Well, they weren't kidding!_ He had been here for one and a half months, and he knew better than to get the impression that they would treat him kindly. But it wouldn't matter soon anyway; he was passed the point of exhaustion. Sweat dripped down from his forehead into his eyes and, unable to wipe it away, temporarily blinded him. His legs were going to buckle underneath him any second, and he knew it.

His legs, knowing they were about to collapse, subconsciously began to slow. Consequently, a bolt of electricity surged through his muscles. But, instead of giving him a small burst of energy like earlier, his legs stiffened and collapsed from underneath him. Danny slammed into the belt of the treadmill with a dull thud, electricity still coursing through his nerves.

"Enough. He's not getting up. Do you have the time?" One of the scientists asked Operative K, preparing to write something down on his clipboard.

"Yup." He replied, clicking the 'stop' switch on a stopwatch. "47 minutes and 32.86 seconds"

Another nameless scientist looked up. "That's quite enough, Operative N. He's not getting up. As much as we like to see him in pain, I think that's enough electrocution."

Op. N muttered something that may account for an apology and switched off the electricity.

Instantly, Danny's body ceased its violent twitching and lay motionless on the linoleum floor, his chest heaving up and down. A third scientist gestured to the door with a slight wave of his hand.

"Give him some water and take him back to his cell; he's done for today." The three unarmed GIW agents exited the small room, discussing their results.

Wordlessly, Op. K and O disconnected the wires around the young halfa and lifted him up by the arms, Op. N holding a glass of water up to his lips. Danny drained the fluid gratefully.

The familiar clicking sound of the agent's armband locking reached his ears as they half-led half-carried him down a narrow hall, across the Central Containment Unit, and into his cell.

As usual, Joey was lying there on his right, only this time trying to catch the ghost equivalent of sleep. The door opening woke him with a start, causing him to sit up just in time to see Op. N slam the door behind him.

Seeing Danny's limp and panting form, he decided to just return to his dreamless sleep for the next few hours, knowing he wouldn't miss anything. In fact, that's exactly what he did.

Only, about 4 hours later, the two of them were awakened by the door once again clattering open. A burly-looking guard with straight, dirty blond hair shoved in a girl looking to be around the same age as Joey. Recently cut pitch-black hair swirled around her face, concealing it. Hands bound behind her back, the young ghost was unable to break her fall, and thus fell flat on her face. The guard paid no attention, however, as he locked her own collar onto the last remaining bar in the cell—the one closest to the door. He left grumbling something about how she was blind and would just be wasting space in the high security cells.

For a split second, Joey panicked and thought the Guys in White had also finally killed his sister, until he heard her speak. "Come on...Come on...Budge! You're made of metal, why aren't you moving?" That was _definitely_ not Sheila's voice.

Danny coughed once, trying to attract the girl's attention away from escaping. "Um, you're not alone in this cell, you know."

"Eh...Yeah...We're here too." Joey added, recovering from his slight panic attack.

That made the girl look up for a second, grey eyes staring into nothing. "Oh, well, I'm not going to be here very long to get to know you two," She continued to struggle against her restraints. "But allow me to introduce myself; my name's Toph."

* * *

Alright, The way I figured this all to work was that the Ghost Zone was where ghosts from a bunch of different dimensions all end up, with the DP universe being the one with the most technology, and hence the main universe. So, yeah. But I didn't just pull that out of thin air; I have a plan!

Also, regarding Operative N, I'll give you another hint as to his identity: He hates Danny not because he's half-ghost, but because of whom he was in his past life... Anyone who gets it right gets a preview! I haven't really figured out the order of chapters past the next one, so I don't know when you'll find out...

Review! Please! The little blue button is calling you... The cakes and cookies are calling you... Please!

I might be able to get the next chapter up sometime between March 10th and when Spring Break starts. But I don't know. See Ya!


	11. Chapter 11

_*Chapter edited September 6, 2010.

* * *

_

Wow. I summed up four months in two and a half chapters. Well, here's the next one! Sorry it's kinda short. I intended it to be a lot longer, but I'm pressed for time right now. Sorry.

Disclaimer: I don't own DP, Naruto, or Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Chapter Eleven: Freedom

"What was that you said about escaping?" Joey finally said after watching Toph attempt to break free for about half an hour.

"Okay, fine! They won't budge! I admit it!" The ghost replied, finally giving in and pushing herself into a sitting position. _If only they hadn't taken my space earth...Then I could just make a key... _She sighed. "Well, I guess I _am_ stuck with you two for a while..." The earthbender sighed again. "So..."

"I'm Joey."

"Danny." The half-ghost answered, raising his hand in the air slightly.

"So...What _is_ this place?" She asked.

After that statement, the two of them seemed to be at loss of what to say for a moment. "Well..." Joey strained out.

"It's Hell on earth." Danny said flatly and without emotion. "You probably have about four months to live, before they dissect you."

"Yeah..." The teen ghost agreed, hanging his head down. "You see...What happened to my last cellmate...Before Danny came along..." He brought his head back up. "They-they put something in his food...It-it clouded over his eyes, and-and he said that he couldn't hear anything...After maybe a minute he couldn't even talk...And when they came for him, he could barely stand up...I never saw him again after that..." The last part Joey could barely choke out, knowing he was to suffer the same fate in a matter of weeks.

"Wait, who's 'They' exactly?" Toph managed to push herself into a kneeling position, leaning against the wall.

"'They' are The Guys in White, aka The Most Evil and Cruel Ghost Hunters on the Planet."

"Did you just say ghost hunters? B-but, I-I'm not a ghost!" She countered, not believing what she was hearing.

Silence immediately befell the enclosure, none of its inhabitants daring to break it.

_Am I?

* * *

_

_Come on...Come on...Break!_

Haku soon relaxed his arms, another attempt at an escape jutsu failing miserably. _Why won't it work?_ He wondered, lying on the floor of his cell, his arms firmly chained to his side. The ghost stared up at the ceiling, starting to lose himself in the sedative's haze that continually clouded over his mind.

"Still trying to break free, even after two months, eh?" Haku's head whipped around at the sound of Op. Y's voice.

_Crap..._ In his sedative-induced state, the ninja hadn't heard his guard slickly enter his cell and stand by the entrance. _Not more experiments..._ The escape attempt had sapped all of his strength, and the only thing he wanted to do now was sleep.

"Ever wonder why your little 'tricks' aren't working?" He mocked, starting to pace around the tiny enclosure. "You see, ghost-proof metal is really quite interesting. It not only keeps a ghost from phasing through it, but it also prevents any chakra from going through as well. So, you might want to just give up on those attempts. They won't work."

Well, that just answered his question for the day. The GIW agent strolled over to Haku and unlocked him from the wall. "Well, no matter." He tugged sharply on his collar. "Get up."

The ghost managed to push himself up without the use of his hands and without being strangled, trying his best to keep the room from spinning. _It'll be a _long_ day..._ He thought as Op. Y led him out of his cell down a narrow hall. _A _really_ long day...

* * *

_

The door to Danny's cell cracked open, allowing Toph's guard to push said ghost inside. Locking his end of her collar into the wall, he kicked her hard in the stomach before leaving.

Upon hearing the sound of locks clicking shut, the young earthbender tried to sit up with her hands still bound behind her. "Ow..." she moaned in agony, having to lean on her right arm after it had been dislocated, and hadn't yet been popped back into place. "My arm..."

Joey, who had been sleeping, finally looked up from his curled position by the wall. "What's wrong with your arm?" He asked groggily, noticing how it was hanging down at an awkward angle.

"I-I think it's broken..."

He leaned toward her as far as his chain would allow, but it wasn't enough. "Here, I need to see your arm. Move forward a bit so I can reach you."

The young ghost obliged, bare feet pulling on the floor to drag her closer. She nudged her injured arm out to him, trying to keep from crying out in pain. _What's wrong with me? Why do I feel so weak?_

Suddenly, Joey took one look at it and grabbed onto the earthbender's arm. A wet, popping sound echoed through the cell as he forced her arm back into its shoulder socket. Instantly, the throbbing in her shoulder ceased, causing a wave of relief to wash over the blind ghost.

"Thanks." She muttered. The both of them slid back into their previous positions.

A few minutes passed before either of them stirred. "You know, you're a lot like my sister." Joey said, putting an end to the encroaching silence.

Toph looked up, jarred out of being on the verge of sleep. "I am?"

He gave a slight nod, forgetting she couldn't see. "Yup."

"How so?" She questioned, cocking her head slightly.

"Well, you two certainly act alike, that's for sure." The ghost chuckled, only to have his eyes droop slightly. "She's blind, too, but hates to admit it. My parents have always been overprotective of her, even though they know she hates them for it."

Toph burst out laughing. "That's more like me than you think."

Joey raised an eyebrow. "So, your parents were like that, too?"

"Worse. From what you're telling me, they were just overprotective. _My_ parents...well, let's just say the town I lived in didn't even know I existed." Joey visibly cringed. "They isolated me. Think it's any wonder I ran away?" She made a careful note not to say _who_ she ran away with and _why_.

At the thought of her lost friends, however, a wave of sadness immediately welled up in her chest, softening her features. _They're probably wondering where the heck I am..._ Joey might have said something in response to her explanation, but none of his words registered. Already, she was lost in her own thoughts._ Probably...Or maybe not..._ A spark of anger made the earthbender's muscles tense. _What am I thinking? I don't need them! If they don't miss me, then I don't miss them! I—"_

Her thoughts were cut short when Operative N abruptly slammed the door open. He shoved in Danny, who, slightly disoriented, tripped clumsily over Toph's outstretched legs and stumbled, head first, into the wall. The GIW agent, however, was more careful. As he stepped through the doorway, he kicked the ghost out of the way, forcing out a groan from her. As per routine, he snapped Danny's collar into the wall and left without another word.

"Ow..." The halfa moaned, trying his best to keep his back immobile. His head shook incoherently, its owner still slightly dazed as to what just happened.

Joey offered no help, as he could only stare in horror at what the Guys in White had done to him. The Velcro straps running down his spine hadn't been fastened back on, allowing a strip of crisscrossing cuts and bruises to be visible. Blood trickled out of a small gash on his left shoulder, tiny flecks of ectoplasm standing out clearly against the black fabric. More blood seeped through the clothing in places, adding to the stains his uniform already wore.

"My head..." The halfa's vision began to clear. Upon seeing his cellmate leaning over him, he asked, "What happened?"

"You tell me." He replied. "Don't you remember anything?"

"I'm not sure...I think I got hit in the head with...a chair." Toph chuckled from across the room. Danny whipped his head around, glaring at the ghost. "It's not funny! One of the guards pushed me!"

He only succeeded in making her laugh harder. By now, she was sprawled out on the concrete floor, rocking back and forth with laughter at the thought of how it must have looked. The halfa growled, trying to turn and grab her. However, his spine gave a painful throb in protest. It was all he could do to lie there and glare harshly at the blind earthbender.

"Relax. We all needed a good laugh." Joey intervened. Lowering his vioce to a whisper, he continued. "Personally, I think she still might be in denial as to what's happening to her. I think she hasn't quite wrapped her mind around the fact that she's not getting out of this. None of us are." Danny had hoped it was for the best that Joey didn't know _he_ was getting released in a couple months.

The young halfa sighed. "I guess you're right." He replied with a similar volume, trying to sit up. However, his cuts and bruises screamed in protest. Cringing, he shifted back into his previous position. "But false hope is sometimes worse than no hope at all. I for one think—"

He was cut short by the door slamming open once more. A non-operative guard appeared in the doorway, carrying two plastic trays of food. Or, what someone might consider to _resemble_ food. The lumpy mass of indistinguishable meat lying beside a piece of stale bread appeared to have been experimented on itself before being deemed 'fit only for the ghosts to eat'. Still, Danny and Joey had to admit that it _was _slightly better than the cafeteria food at their respective schools, so they weren't going to complain any time soon. Toph always said nothing on the subject.

The guard plopped the two trays down in front of the two ghosts, not saying a word to either of them. He turned and stood over the heaping form against the wall, cold eyes staring down at the injured halfa. Speaking through his headset and face mask, he said, "As further punishment, your guard has ordered that you not be given any food until tomorrow." With that, the guard left without another word.

Once the door slammed shut, Joey tried to give part of his tray to Danny. He refused it. "I'll be fine. What's a day or two to me?" The halfa gave a weak smile.

The ghost sighed, knowing he wouldn't get anywhere if he tried to argue. He began to eat the disgusting food, concentrating only on keeping it down his throat. Silence soon befell the tiny enclosure, only broken by the sounds of chewing. However, after a few minutes, Joey suddenly dropped his plastic fork and stopped eating. "No..." He whispered, staring out ahead.

Danny looked up and gasped, alarmed at what he saw. His cellmate's eyes had clouded over completely.

"No...It's happening...My time is up." He turned to the dumbfounded halfa, unable to see him. "Danny..." The halfa was staring, wide-eyed, at the ghost by now. "If you ever get out of here...Please...find my sister...Tell her...tell her the truth...tell her everything." By now, Joey couldn't hear his own words. If Danny had sad anything in return, he would never know. "Please...She has a right to know...what happened...to...her... brother..." His words were barely choked out, the ghost's voice fading.

Two operatives opened the door at that point, come to take him to his final experiment. As they hauled Joey out of the cell, he gave a backward glance before exiting. "Please..." He mouthed, the door slamming shut behind him.

Neither Toph nor Danny ever saw the young ghost again after that.

* * *

Today was the day.

Sam gazed with mixed emotions at the calendar in front of her. It was flipped to the October section, the square near the bottom of the glossy page circled with a bright red marker. A large X crossed out all the days preceding it, declaring they had already passed by. However, the day circled was not Halloween, as one might think, but three days prior. _Saturday, October 27, 2007_, it read.

The goth could barely contain the emotions swimming around in her head. Anguish, joy, hatred, compassion, anxiousness, hope, worry, despair; they all blended into a wave of unrecognizable feelings. She shook her head, trying to quench them, but they persisted. Finally, after several more attempts to force the thoughts to the back of her mind, it worked.

Getting dressed in two minutes flat, the teen slipped out the back door to her mansion-like house. She breathed in the chill October air, pulling on her coat as she walked. The autumn sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, offering no prospect of warmth. Brown leaves crinkled under Sam's feet as she briskly walked toward FentonWorks, a wind blowing through her hair.

Even though her parents were out of town for the weekend, Sam couldn't help but feel a need to hurry as she continued down the gridline streets of Amity Park. Something just kept telling her _hurry, hurry, hurry_. She didn't even know why. Perhaps it was just paranoia, but she doubted it.

Whatever it was, it had a profound effect, as she soon realized that she was standing outside her destination. Sighing, the goth teenager ascended the three concrete steps and knocked on the door.

She was greeted by Tucker, who appeared to have not gotten much sleep the night before. Large, dark bags had formed under his eyes, and his clothes were dirty and wrinkled. Sam hadn't gotten much sleep either, but she didn't seem as obvious as him. Or, at least, that's what she thought, until Tucker asked, "So, you couldn't sleep either?"

She simply shook her head in response, brushing past the techno-geek standing in the doorway. Immediately, she felt the immense tension in the living room, where two of the Fenton family members were seated. Jazz had left grudgingly for college months ago, and had unfortunately not been able to return for the weekend.

Jack and Maddie sat together on the couch, staring out into space. Maddie held a cup of stone cold coffee in her shaking hands, not daring to drink it, as if it was poisoned. Jack stared at the two teens standing by the door with hollow, depressed eyes. Suddenly, the huge man shifted and rose from his position. He trudged to the back door leading out to where the GAV was parked, grabbing a set of keys lain casually on the kitchen table along the way.

"Let's go." Just those two words, choked and scratchy, were the most either of the two teens had heard Jack speak in the last three months. Maddie put down her mug on the coffee table and joined her husband. She looked back to see Sam and Tucker following her out the door, as if in a trance.

The ride over pasted in an uneasy silence. The massive wave of emotion Sam had barely been able to contain earlier returned, and, coupled with the silence, made the ten minute drive feel closer to years. The goth stared out the window in an attempt to once again quell the dread in the back of her mind. It didn't work this time. Sighing, she continued to glance out at the dreary sight beyond the car's window. Dark clouds were coming in from the north, possibly bringing rain. Already, the slowly rising sun had been shrouded in their cover, casting the city in an erie, shadowless light.

_What a shame..._ She thought dryly._ It rains the day he gets freed..._ She immediately tore away from the window, a lump starting to well up in her throat at the thought of Danny.

Luckily, Sam's thoughts were cut short by the GAV lurching to a halt in front of their destination. She managed to swallow the lump in her throat and maintain what someone might pass off as composure as she exited the vehicle. _Well, time to face him..._ She thought half-heartily.

_What's the worst the Guys in White could've done?

* * *

_

Um. Again, I hadn't planned on cutting it off this short, but there you go! The next one's _DEFINITELY _going to be longer. I'm just kind of pressed for time, as I wanted to write a little oneshot for April 3rd this year.

Also, regarding Operative N: One person was REALLY close! But it's not Gato. Remember! This is 17 years after the original Naruto series. Anyone who was a kid then would've grown up by now. Anyone who was an adult, however, well...I'll assume you can guess that.

Please review! Don't you like my virtual cookies and cakes?


	12. Chapter 12

_*Chapter edited September 6, 2010.

* * *

_

Well, here's the next chapter

Ahhh! Please don't kill me! I know it took me forever to update! I'm sorry!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP, Naruto, or Avatar: The Last Airbender.

* * *

Chapter Twelve: Aftermath

_So...Much...Pain..._

Danny couldn't stand it any longer. It was his last day with the Guys in White, and Operative N was making it the most painful, horrible, and agonizingly slow day of his life.

Currently, the halfa was chained to the wall of a small, dimly lit room. His uniform's shirt lay in a blood-stained heap in the corner, not having been given a second thought. Op. N stood behind him, holding a whip coated in blue, chemically treated ectoranium. With every minute that ticked by, he would lash the halfa once in the back, not only cutting yet another gash into his already blood-soaked skin, but also sending a wave of electricity shooting up his spine.

And, right when it seemed that the pain of one cut had begun to subside, he would just open another one, starting the whole process over again. According to the clock on the wall, the agent had been at this since around 6 A.M. this morning. It was now getting close to 8:30. By now, one wouldn't have been able to tell if Danny had any skin _left_ on his back, it was so criss-crossed with cuts and gashes. Some had managed to scab over partially, but blood continued to ooze out of a majority of them, soaking what was left of his skin in crimson, broken by tiny flecks of ectoplasm.

Several other Operative-ranked agents - including Op. O and K - leaned against the back wall of the room, enjoying the young halfa's pain. Although they all stood in silence, most of them bore a sinister grin, all relishing the moment. But even if Danny had been facing them, instead of the ghost-proof steel wall, he wouldn't have seen any of them. He was too blinded by the pain to recognize anything anymore. He had stopped screaming long ago, but silent tears continued to trickle from his eyes, forming constant, wet trails along his dirt-covered face.

However, all things must come to an end eventually. Another Operative suddenly burst through the door to the small room, panting slightly. "They're here." Was all he said before leaving, shutting the door behind him.

Every agent in the room groaned in some way, shape, or form. "Oh, that's too bad..." Op. N sighed, stowing the whip away for future use after wiping the blood from it. "I was hoping they would at _least_ take another hour or two to show up..."

The agent walked back over to Danny, pulling out a syringe from under his suit. He jabbed it roughly into his shoulder, ignoring the sudden cry of pain from the halfa. "Listen here, boy." The agent began, using his free hand to yank his head back. "This chemical is the same thing we gave your little friend a couple months ago. _It never wears off_." He sneered, pulling the needle out, the contents now emptied into the halfa's blood stream. "So, before it can take effect, I'll just say this:" Op. N leaned in closer, whispering into the halfa's ear. "You might be granted your freedom, but you're going to spend it for the rest of your life in silence, and in darkness."

Of course, all the agents present knew full well that it was only a minor dose, and was expected to wear off in about half an hour. But, of course, they couldn't let Danny know that. Telling him would take all the fun out of it.

* * *

Sam couldn't believe it. She couldn't.

The goth continued to stare at the form lying on the GAV's tiny couch. _What have they done to you? _She thought, silently stroking a hand through his tangled hair. It had lost its healthy blue sheen months ago, and was now matted and caked with dirt and the halfa's own dried blood. Danny's eyes wandered around the place, clouded and unseeing. He never responded to anything Sam or Tucker asked, so now they both sat in silence. The remote control to his restraints lay in the corner, along with the chains themselves. The ectoranium cores remained exposed on the inside, never having been retracted.

She and Tucker had been waiting there for at least twenty minutes with Danny. The two Fenton parents were still inside, discussing something or other with the head of the Guys in White. During that time, the same event from earlier kept replaying itself over and over again in Sam's head.

_The four of them slowly entered the building, each member of the group mentally preparing themselves for the moment ahead. _

_As the heavy, reinforced double doors slid open, they came face to face with an Operative sitting at the front desk._

_He glared coldly up at them from behind a book propped up with his hands. "He's in there." Was all he said in a hateful tone, pointing his thumb at a door behind him. "Try not to get on his bad side; he's in a sour mood as it is." He advised, once again becoming engrossed in his book. _

_The four hesitantly opened the door into the Head Operative's office. He was sitting at his heavy wooden desk, scribbling furiously on a sheet of paper, his brows furrowed deeply in concentration. At the sound of the door opening, he did not look up. "What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?" He demanded gruffly. "Well?" _

_The Head Operative finally turned his head up when his comment was met with silence. "I said what—" The agent cut off his sentence at the sight of the two Fenton parents. "Oh! Mr. and Mrs. Fenton..." He plastered a fake smile on his face. "I didn't realize it was you..." He glanced down at the small, tear-off calendar on his desk, which, previously, he hadn't so much as given a second thought to except for tearing the next page off. _Oct. 27th_ was written across the paper in bold, blocky text. Inwardly, he sighed._ I had hoped they would take at_ least_ another hour or two...

"_Where's our son?" Maddie demanded, forcing the Head Operative to bring his eyes back up to meet hers. She had her arms crossed and was glaring at the agent. Jack was doing the same, as were the two teens. _

"_Ah, yes...your son..." The GIW agent turned his head to an Operative standing by a side door labeled, _NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT._ "Operative X!" The GIW worker awoke from his light nap with a start. _

"_Y-yes sir?" __He stuttered._

"_Go fetch Operative N for me, will you?" _

"_Yes sir!" The GIW worker saluted his superior and charged through the door, slamming it behind him. _

"_Now, then. While he's doing that..." The Head Operative pulled a form out of his top desk drawer. He laid it on the desktop and pushed it, along with a pen, toward Jack and Maddie. "If the two of you would just sign these forms, then you can be on your way with your son, along with—" He coughed lightly. "—the other part of our deal."_

_The couple muttered a short "fine" and stepped forward. Maddie grabbed the pen and, after skimming the release papers, signed and initialed the form accordingly. _

_While Jack took his turn hunched over the forms, the door opened. Operative O and K stepped through first, each having one arm linked with one of Danny's elbows, offering him support. Op. N walked behind him, the agent's wrist strap and the chain connected to it clearly visible from the group's point of view. The halfa himself had his head down, his matted hair blocking the view of his eyes. Occasionally, he would lose his footing, the two agents' death grips the only thing keeping him from falling._

_Maddie stared, to say the least. "D-Danny?" She called out, her voice wavering._

"_He can't hear you." The Head Operative proclaimed, watching the scene unfold. "Or see you, for that matter."_

"_What?" Maddie's head whipped around, her face red with rage. "What the _hell_ did you do to him?" _

"_Relax. It'll wear off in about half and hour." The agent replied nonchalantly. _

"_You still didn't answer her question." Sam spoke up, her voice brimming with hatred._

_The GIW worker simply leaned back in his chair. "Just think of it this way;" A dark glint appearing in his eyes. "We could've done a lot worse than what we did." _

_That made Jack lose it. _"_Why you lying—" He drew his huge fist back, ready to punch the agent. _

_The Head Operative leaned further back in his chair, narrowly missing the ghost hunter's hand. He sat back up straight and waved his index finger back and forth in the air. "Ah. Ah. Ah." He reached into his top drawer and picked up the contract the ghost hunting couple had signed only months before. "This contract might say that we had to return your son on this date, but it said _nothing_ about what his physical and mental state had to be. You're the ones who agreed to sign it, not me."_

"_We signed it because you gave us no choice!" Maddie cried, trying to keep Jack from attempting to hit him again. She turned her head to her husband. "Jack!" _

_Finally, the middle-aged ghost hunter ceased his struggling, content on glaring at the government agent._

"_Good. Now that that's settled, we need to discuss _your_ end of the bargain." The Head Operative meshed his fingers together. "Do you have the documents we asked for?" _

_Jack, in response, grumbled something under his breath and reached into his jumpsuit. He pulled out a few rolled up sheets of paper and laid them roughly on the agent's desk. "There. The stupid sheets of paper you wanted. Now give us back our son!" _

_The Head Operative unrolled each sheet and studied them carefully. Finally satisfied, he rolled up the last sheet and motioned to Op. N. _

_Said agent quickly pulled out the remote to Danny's restraints and unlocked his wristband. Operative O and K released their hold on the young halfa, causing Danny to waver slightly before regaining his balance. The black-haired operative held the open wristband out to Maddie. She was about to take it, but declined, turning to Sam. _

"_Sam, why don't you and Tucker take Danny out to the car. Jack and I have some...matters to discuss with the Guys in White." The goth teen sighed and walked up to Op. N. _

_As the young GIW agent handed her the wristband, he couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "I still think the little piece of scum should have been dissected..." _

_A loud _crack_ resounded through the room as Sam slapped him right across the cheek. "Don't you _ever_ say that about him!" _

_Op. N rubbed his cheek, where there was a rapidly appearing red spot in the shape of a hand. "You're his girlfriend, I'd assume?" He replied sardonically. _

_Sam responded by slapping him on the other side of his face. By now, everyone in the room was watching their argument. The GIW agents didn't dare try to break it up, for fear of Sam _and_ Operative N's temper being directed at them. The same reason applied to Tucker and the two Fenton parents. _

"_Alright, alright. Just take him! Let the wretch have his freedom for all I care!" He practically threw the wristband into the teen's arms. Before he handed off his remote control, however, he pressed his finger on the bright red switch in the middle of the remote. _

_Instantly, electricity surged through Danny's limp form, but that drug the Guys in White gave him worked well. It was designed to completely subdue a ghost while it was being dissected, so no matter how much pain that ghost experienced, they never so much as flinched. Of course, this process also heightened the sense of touch ten fold, but no solution is without its drawbacks. So, no one noticed the halfa's suffering. Sure, his eyes gave off that of pure agony, but other than that, his body didn't move a muscle. _

Just one final goodbye present, filth! _Operative N thought to himself, not daring to say it out loud, for fear of getting slapped again. _

_Sam cast one final glare at the young agent, before exiting the room with Danny in tow, Tucker offering the halfa support with his shoulder. _

Suddenly, Sam's hand came in contact with something wet and sticky. She stared down at the couch on which her hand rested. A small puddle of blood was trickling out from underneath Danny's back, soaking the teen's hand.

"Tucker..." She said, alarmed. The techno geek was already digging around in the shelves for a first aid kit.

* * *

"Are you _insane_? He's a _murderer_!" The Head Operative shouted, alarmed at the couple's first decision on which ghost to take.

"He'll kill you in your sleep if those sedatives wear off!" Operative Y cried, clearly not approving any less of their choice to take Haku. "I swear he will!"

"The contract said, 'any two ghosts of our choosing.' So we choose Haku." Maddie said matter-of-factly. "He won't do that, trust me. We'll make sure of that."

"Even if we don't take precautions, I doubt he'd attack us." Jack added. He couldn'd help but add darkly, "Also, why should you care? Wouldn't it be better for you that the only outside people with knowledge of your operations are dead? The media would just blame a rogue ghost, and your asses would be covered." Hatred dripped from his voice by the time Jack finished.

The Head Operative stepped forward, meeting the ghost hunter's gaze. "Well, Mr. Fenton, the media would just file that occurrence along with all the _other_ ghost attacks that we couldn't stop!" He banged his huge fist on the cell wall, causing Haku to jolt awake on the other side. "In case you haven't noticed, Fenton, but there hasn't been a single ghost attack in Amity Park in almost six weeks! And we are _not_ going to let some 'rogue ghost attack' ruin our reputation!"

Maddie crossed her arms. "But still, the contract says—"

"I don't care what the contract says! He's staying in that cell!" The agent stomped his foot on the ground, his face red with rage.

"So you, the Guys in White, agents working for the _Federal Government_, are about to go through with breaching a legal document?" Jack countered.

The Head Operative took one deep breath and relaxed his shoulders. Still glaring at the couple, he ordered, "Take the ghost out of his cell."

"B-but, sir..." Op. Y tried to argue. It was useless.

"Take the ghost out of his cell." The GIW agent reaffirmed. As his coworker forced opened the padlocked door, the Head Operative stepped over to the married couple. He jabbed his finger into Jack's face. "You win this round, Fenton, but don't think this is over."

Glaring at Haku, who was practically asleep on his feet, Op. Y handed over the remote and his own wristband to Jack, grumbling something about how Haku was scheduled for dissection the next day...

"Alright. _Who else_?" The Head Operative asked through gritted teeth. Maddie just shrugged in response. "Okay, then let's start in this direction." He began to lead them away from the high security cells, and towards the much more crowded low-security area.

But, sensing the agent was trying to lure them away from something important, Maddie turned around. "Let's look over here, Jack."

Jack, getting the message, turned and followed her across the octagonal room. Haku trudged along behind him, his head lolling slightly. The Head Operative, not daring to break the contract, forced himself to follow along behind, left eye twitching in irritation.

* * *

"Tucker! Here, grab his legs; we need to get him on his stomach!" Sam cried, grabbing under Danny's arms. Carefully, they both managed to roll the halfa over, forcing Danny to put the side of his head into a puddle of his own blood.

Gingerly, the goth teen undid the Velcro straps running down his back, only to reel back in horror when she saw the criss-crossing cuts and gashes. However, her fear soon melted into rage. _Danny, I swear the Guys in White will pay for this! I don't know how, but they're _not_ getting away with this!_ She vowed.

Tucker merely cringed, then set to work with cleaning the wounds. Most of them had already scabbed over, but a few were still oozing a mixture of half-dried and fresh blood. He dabbed at them with a paper towel dipped in alcohol, and tried to wipe away the excess blood. Danny never even so much as flinched during that entire time, his clouded eyes still staring off into empty space, reflecting that of pure agony.

While Sam was helping Tucker wrap gauze over Danny's back, Jack and Maddie stepped inside the GAV. Haku managed to stumble in after Jack, still bound in chains. The ghost hunting couple had already locked the second ghost safely away, in the newly added cage inlaid into the back of the vehicle.

"Sit down, please." Jack told the ghost, snapping his armband onto a bar in the wall. Haku obliged, waiting patiently for the sedatives to wear off and for him to make his escape.

The middle-aged gost hunter walked over to the two teens bent over the young halfa, but once Jack saw what Sam and Tucker were doing, he only grimaced and turned to the driver's seat, saying nothing.

Upon seeing Jack's reaction, Maddie cautiously approached the three teenagers. The ghost hunter jumped back when she saw his condition. Horrified, she swallowed loudly and tried to step forward again. "H-how is he?" She asked, shaking.

Sam just shook her head. "He should be fine, but he'd lost a lot of blood..." she trailed off.

Maddie manaed to sum up the courage to kneel down beside her son, and gently laid a hand on his head. "What have they done to you?" She whispered softly to herself.

However, Sam heard her. "I asked myself the same question." As the goth teen tightened the gauze pad, Danny's fist clenched. The drug was beginning to wear off.

Very, very slowly, the halfa's senses returned. He began to hear soft, muffled voices next to him, calling his name. The film over his eyes began to clear up, allowing him to make out the blurry figures of his frends and family.

"Danny!" The three of them cried, their faces brightening.

The halfa groaned at the sound of their voices and tried to sit up. Sam laid a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down. "Lie back down. You've lost a lot of blood." She urged. Danny ignored her. Gritting his teeth with the effort, he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

"Those lying _bastards_..." He mumbled under his breath, rubbing his wrists where the manacles used to be. "So...That's it? I'm home free?"

Maddie nodded, her face beaming. "Yes." She breathed, tears of joy shining on the edge of her eyes.

Soon the three of them embraced the young halfa in a group hug, completely forgetting about the ghost behind them, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, snoring softly.

Suddenly, Jack started up the engine and the GAV lurched forward. Jack, for the first time in months, smiled. A single tear of joy ran down his cheek as he pulled out of the parking lot.

As Sam, Tucker, and Maddie stood up and sat in their respective seats, Danny remained on the couch, content on staring out the window. He concentrated on the sky, trying to ignore the small puddle of blood right beside him. The storm clouds were closer now, having covered the entire sky, including the sun. The halfa stared up at them, thinking,

_It's a shame it had to rain today. I kinda missed the sun.

* * *

_

"C'mon...Where _is_ it?"

Danny walked cautiously through the Amity Park Cemetery, carefully checking each gravestone as he walked past. "It's gotta be here somewhere..."

It had only been about an hour since he got home, but after washing all the dirt and grime out of his hair and a change of clothes, he felt he needed to do this. He would honor Joey's last request and tell his sister about what happened. But first...He had to see the boy's gravestone. Something seemed to draw him here...He didn't know what, but he knew he had to come here first.

Suddenly, an all-too-familiar blue wisp of smoke rose up from in between Danny's lips. Glancing up from a gravestone adorned with an angel statue, he spotted the source of his ghost sense amid the sea of stone. A young girl, about twelve by the looks of it, was standing there, hunched over a grave. She wore simple jeans and a T-shirt, her messy black hair blocking the view of her face. A tiny, ice blue ghost gryphon was perched on top of the grave, one of its feathers in its beak.

The girl lay a small flower at the base of the stone, while her beastly companion let his feather fall. It floated silently down through the air before landing next to the flower, the very touch of it seeming to freeze the petals.

She whispered something even the gryphon could barely hear, stood up, and left, the winged ghost taking off into the air after her. When she was finally out of sight behind the gates of the cemetery, Danny got up the nerve to go peer at the gravestone she had been looking at.

_**RIP****  
Joey Samuel Craig****  
March 16, 1994-****  
March 17, 2007  
He will be missed.**_

Danny stared at the professionally carved letters. _That was...His sister..._ His eyes darted down to the flower. It was a white pansy, the light blue ring around its center seeming to glow, even in the dark-clouded half-light. The feather was a different story. When he picked it up for closer inspection, the halfa noticed one side was ice blue, while the other was such a dark blue it was almost black. Two white spots were on the darker side, at seemingly random points along the shaft.

Smiling slightly, Danny put the feather and flower back down in their places. But, before he stood up, he noticed some more words scratched onto the surface of the stone. They didn't resemble the rest of the carvings; it looked like someone had roughly scratched the letters into the stone, as if that person had...talons. A few raindrops pattered down on the ground as Danny cleared away some of the dirt blocking the letters. It read:

_May the Guys in White pay for what they did to you!_

Well, that just marked off another item on Danny's To-Do List.

* * *

Ahhh! I'm sorry! I promise I'll get the next chapter up sooner!

Also, regarding Operative N...One person got it right! Congratulations, you know who you are! However, I kind of have no more clues to give you without giving it away, so...That's it. I've told you all I can.

Please review! You know you want to...


	13. Chapter 13

_*Chapter edited September 6, 2010.

* * *

_

Okay, here's the next chapter! Consider yourselves lucky, because I was having half a mind to not post this until Friday the Thirteenth. But, I decided not to, so here you go!

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, Naruto, or Avatar: The Last Airbender.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen: Valerie

"I have to_ what_?" Danny shouted, horrified.

Maddie put her hands on her hips. "You heard me. You have to go back to school on Monday, which is tomorrow."

"B-but, _why_?" He shot up from his seat, fists balled.

Maddie remained adamant. "Because you have to go to school." She poked him in the chest with her index finger. "You've missed enough as it is."

"But why tomorrow?" He countered.

Meanwhile, as mother and son argued, Haku stood against the wall, his face like stone. Only his eyes moved as they followed the two other figures in the room, debating whether or not to step in. As he did four months ago, he decided not to. _It's not my argument._ He reasoned.

Since yesterday, he had managed to swap out his prisoner's uniform with some of Danny's old clothes and—after an all-night trip into the Ghost Zone—he had "acquired" another pouch full of needles and a new cloak. This one was a deep shade of blood red, and made of cheap cloth. Although it wasn't as good as his old one, he felt it would suffice for the time being.

"Okay! Fine! I'll go!" Danny snapped, turning away from his ghost-hunting mother, pouting with his arms crossed. But, after standing in silence for a few seconds, his frustration dwindled and his shoulders slumped. The halfa turned back to her, his face softened. "Just-just leave me _alone _right now. I...I need to think." He plumped himself back down on the couch, while Maddie just sighed and stalked off down into the lab, deflated.

Once she disappeared down the stairs, the halfa put his face in his hands. "What is _wrong_ with me?" He whispered softly to himself.

However, Haku heard him. "Perhaps it's a result of—"

"That was rhetorical!" Danny snapped, rising to his feet, fists clenched. He relaxed his grip soon after, returning to his place on the sofa. He sighed. "Sorry I yelled. I just...need to be alone right now, okay? Why don't you...go help mom and dad out in the lab?" He suggested. "I just...need to be alone."

The ghost bowed slightly and walked off, cloak twisting as he went. "As you wish, Master." He called over his shoulder when he was at the top of the stairs.

"And don't call me 'master'!" Danny shouted back, but he had already disappeared.

He lay back, staring up at the ceiling. _I wonder what happened here while I was gone..._ The halfa pondered, wondering why the town hadn't been over run by ghosts in his absence. _Hmm...Now that I think of it, the only ghost I've seen since I got back here yesterday was that gryphon...What did Joey say his name was? Girfle... Giles... Gleel... Ah... Gyl! That was his name! Hmm...Weird name for a boy, now that I think about it..._ He suddenly got a strange suspicion that he had heard the name _before_ Joey told him his story, but he quickly dismissed it.

Danny soon grew tired of staring up at the ceiling and situated himself in order to look out the window. Just in time, he was able to spot the baldheads of Operative K and O as they strolled past the window. Seconds later, there was a knock on the door.

As Danny rose from his spot to answer it, he was praying that it was just a coincidence, and that the Guys in White _weren't_ at his doorstep the day after he had been released. Unfortunately, his hopes were crushed when he glanced through the door's peephole. Hesitantly, the halfa twisted the doorknob and opened the door, glaring at the two agents all the while.

"What do _you_ want?" Venom dripped from his voice.

"Oh, nothing much..." Op. K began, glancing from side to side and pretending to twiddle his thumbs innocently.

"We just thought you might want to know a little something." Op. O finished, smiling like a village idiot.

The halfa continued to glare at them. "Whatever it is, I don't care! Now _leave_." Danny's arm muscles clenched, prepared to to slam the door in their faces.

He only reached about halfway before Op. O spoke up again. "We caught her."

Danny's arm halted. His eyes widened in horror. "Wh-what did you just say?" He stuttered.

"You heard us. We finally tracked down your little 'cousin.'" Op. K clarified, forming air quotes on 'cousin'.

"It sure took us long enough." His co-worker snorted, arms now crossed. "Four months of a bunch of wild goose chases leading all over the country." The agent balled his fist. "That little wretch knew all the right places to hide."

Meanwhile, as the agents rubbed their victory in his face, Danny stood behind the partly shut door, seething. His willpower to not attack them was quickly diminishing. Finally, Op. K's last comment sent him over the edge.

"Yeah, but it was worth it. She has a very high-pitched scream, don't you think, O?"

Next thing the two agents knew, they were both pinned to the pavement, Danny having one of his hands around each of their necks.

"What. Did. You. Do. To. Her?" He growled through grit teeth, tightening his grip. His sightless yellow eye flared red with hatred, seeming to bore a hole through the two GIW agents. "Answer me!"

Unfortunately, Op. K easily ripped the halfa's fingers off of his throat and pushed him off, mentally noting how light he was.

Danny stumbled back through the partially closed door, nearly taking it off its hinges in the process. Op. O charged forward into the house, ecto-gun blazing. His partner followed behind, ready to tackle the young halfa. He soon had him pinned to the ground, despite his weak struggling.

Staring straight into Danny's rage-filled eyes, he said, "Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Fenton, but I'm afraid that's classified information. If we were to tell you, then that would be a security breach. We could lose our jobs." The GIW agent explained, as if talking to a four-year-old child.

Danny's eyes grew wilder from rage, while his nose crinkled in revulsion. "I have two things to say to that. _One_—" The palms of his hands began to glow. Seconds later, Op. K was lying against the wall, two ectoplasmic burns marring the arms of his otherwise perfect white suit. Danny pushed himself up off the ground, hands still smoking. "And _two,_ you need to _seriously_ try some mouthwash!"

Op. O lunged forward, his ecto-gun ready to fire. "Why you little—"

He never got a chance to finish his sentence, because the next thing he knew, Haku was behind him, holding him in a tight headlock. The ghost ninja glanced up toward Danny. "I heard a crash and thought you might've needed some help."

"I..." The halfa stared, dumbfounded. "I...you..." He weakly held up a finger and pointed from the GIW agent to Haku. "...you...just..." Suddenly, his eyes widened. "LOOK OUT!" He pointed behind the ghost. Op. K had risen from the wall and was about to club Haku from behind.

Haku merely reached out with his free hand and smacked the agent upside the head. Op. K collapsed onto the floor, groaning. Meanwhile, Op. O was struggling in his grasp, clawing for air. "Can't...Breathe..." He gasped.

By this time, Danny had regained his composure. "Haku! Let him go."

The ghost released his hold on the agent, eyeing the other sternly as he rose to his feet. Op. O fell to the floor and took in a few deep breaths, clutching his throat.

Soon, both the GIW workers had stumbled out the door, fear written all over their expressions. At the last second, Op. O turned back inside the doorframe and, panting, tried to regain some composure. "You—haven't—seen—the—last—of—us!" With that, he slammed the door in the two teens' faces.

Once the coast was clear, Jack and Maddie came bounding up the stairs, worry evident in their expressions.

"Wh-what was that all about?" Maddie asked shakily.

Haku said nothing. Danny lowered his eyes to the ground. "The Guys in White were just here to gloat. They didn't want anything." The halfa's voice choked, tears forming in his eyes.

Before his parents could ask what they could have possibly been bragging about to them, Danny turned on his heel and stalked up the stairs. The sound of a door slamming shut resounded through the upstairs hallway, followed by soft, muffled crying.

* * *

'_Connecting Computer Webcam. Please Wait.' _Flashed across Sam's computer screen, declaring it was connecting itself to Jazz's server.

Suddenly, the screen flickered to life, displaying the view of an unnaturally tidy dorm room. Blocking the middle of it was Jazz's face, appearing worried and depressed, given the current situation. "Uh, hey Sam." She said.

"Hey." The goth answered back.

"So...How is he?"

Sam took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy. "Danny...He's...He looked horrible. I...I don't know how to describe what they did to him."

"It was that bad?"

"...Yeah. His back...It was covered in blood...I think...they tortured him. I'm not really surprised by that, but...It was too much." She began to choke over the next few words. "He...he refused to say anything about what they did to him." Sam shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"I understand. I—" Jazz was interrupted by her wristwatch, which had just started to beep incessantly. "Ah! I have to go, Sam. I'm late for my morning classes!"

The last thing heard on the other end of the connection was frantic shuffling, followed by the door slamming shut. Sam's computer screen went black for a moment, then flicked back to it's normal desktop.

The goth teen sighed, placing her head in her hands. "What did they do to you...?" She asked to no one in particular. Suddenly, her head shot back up, eyebrows creased in frustration and confusion. "Wait a minute...Who has morning classes on a Sunday?"

* * *

Valerie was trapped. Again.

She had spent the money. Her father didn't know, of course, but him finding out that those three and a half million dollars went into ghost hunting equipment instead of going to charity wasn't her biggest concern. Her biggest concern was about Danny. The huntress knew all about the deal made between the Guys in White and the Fentons. She knew that he had arrived back yesterday, and was probably looking for revenge right about now. What she didn't know was that, in actuality, Danny was collapsed on his bed, crying his eyes out over the pain and suffering he had invariably caused his half-ghost clone.

The ghost-hunting teen continued to pace around the lab she had built beneath an abandoned warehouse, muttering softly to herself. "Why do I still feel guilty? I saved that stupid ghost, just like that other weird time ghost told me to. What am I doing wrong?" She glanced over to a large ghost-proof cage in the corner.

The form of a young ghost was hunched over in the very back of his enclosure, appearing to be sleeping soundly. Although his hands and feet were still bound in the chains the Guys in White had given him, he appeared to be quite comfortable. The remnants of his black prisoner's uniform hung on his thin frame, still bearing smudges of dirt and stains of his own ectoplasm. His metal collar was, lucky for him, lain casually on top of a nearby table, not wrapped around his neck.

Valerie knew better than to trust that he really_ was_ asleep, but she didn't necessarily need to worry.

"What am I _doing_?" She screeched suddenly. "I mean, here I am, down here, in a lab that I built using money I got as a result of betraying a friend, staring at a ghost that I don't even know, and had gone out of my way to save the life of, as a favor for _another_ ghost I didn't even remotely trust in the first place!"

Valerie's ranting soon woke the young ghost in the corner, his turquoise eyes beginning to stare at the huntress. As she continued to rant, the young ghost slowly crept over from his spot by the wall up to the bars of his cage.

"I mean, he doesn't even say anything! Every day, that ghost just sits there at the back of that cage and never makes a sound! Really, I—" She had finally turned her head over to the cage and saw, for the first time, her ghostly captive looking her directly in the eye.

"If you hate me so much, why don't you just let me go?" He asked abruptly, his voice hoarse from lack of use. "Why do you insist on keeping me here, even though you feel guilty about it?"

Valerie didn't know how to respond to that. She decided to change the subject. She made a _hmph_ sound before continuing. "So, you're not a mute like I thought you were?"

"Um...No...?" He answered, suddenly fearful. He edged away from the bars, retreating back into his corner, chains rattling softly.

Valerie walked up to the cage and put her hands on the bars. "Wait, I—I just want to ask you a question."

The ghost glanced around hesitantly at all the potential torture devices in the room. "I have a choice?" He asked sardonically, his eyes narrowing.

Valerie sighed. "Look. I...Just answer me, alright?"

"Okay." He carefully nudged himself as far away from the door as possible. In case this question did lead to torture, he could at least make it harder for Valerie to get at him.

The Red Huntress took a deep breath. "While you...While you were with the Guys in White, did you know of anyone there by the name of...Danny Phantom?"

She saw the ghost's eyes grow wide. His surprise quickly wore off, however, as he began to chuckle softly, it slowly growing louder and louder until it rose into full-blown laughter. "Know of him?" He paused to laugh some more.

Valerie's eye's narrowed in irritation. "What's so funny?" She was beginning to grow impatient with the ghost, and was wondering why the heck she had saved him in the first place. She started to reach for the remote to his chains, which had been set down next to his collar and forgotten about until then.

Seeing her motion, the young ghost quickly quieted. Valerie relaxed her arm. "There, now that you're quiet, would you mind telling me what was so funny?"

He took a deep breath. "Well, it's just that..." He smiled and chuckled lightly. "...he was my cellmate."

* * *

Yeah...I think I'll cut the chapter off right there...

Well, now that the school year's almost over, I should be updating much faster once summer arrives!

Also, now two people know the true identity of Operative N! Keep guessing, 'cuz I'm still giving out previews of the next chapters if you get it right!

Please review!


	14. Chapter 14

_*Chapter edited September 6, 2010.

* * *

_

Happy Fourth o' July! Okay...so what if I'm two days late? Sorry I haven't updated for a month! But, you know...Writer's Block sucks. But, so I don't bore you with my other pathetic excuses, here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP, Naruto, or Avatar: The Last Airbender.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen: School

_Darkness._

_Thick, suffocating darkness. Danny stood there, in the thick of it, looking this way and that, trying to find even the faintest glimmer of light. But there was nothing. He tried to form his own orb of ecto-light, but he found it made no difference; the tiny ball of ectoplasm was quickly swallowed up by the blackness, that by the second seemed to be creeping into his bloodstream like poison. Danny soon found he couldn't breathe; it clogged his nostrils and filled his lungs, forcing him to double over in coughing. The air began to weigh down on top of him until the halfa collapsed onto the ground, falling into a puddle of sticky, viscous fluid and mud. His senses began to numb, and his mind fell into a terror-induced haze. _

_Just as the shadows seemed to devour the halfa's very being, it vanished. Just like that, the blackness began to fade away, revealing what had been hidden beneath it. _

_He was in a wide gulley, the canyon-like walls on either side of him appearing to be man-made. Or ghost-made, for that matter, as the eerie green, swirling sky revealed it the to be the Ghost Zone. The sticky mud that Danny rose from hastily was wet with blood and ectoplasm, its respective owners lying dead on the ground. _

_The first one, a human, was a GIW foot soldier, his heavy, ghost-proof armor blackened and burnt from ectoblasts. A deep gash in his side continued to leak out blood, mingling with his opponent's ectoplasm. The second one, a ghost, was sprawled out on top of him, the shaft of his ice spear protruding out of the GIW soldier's chest. The ghost was clearly a member of frostbite's race, and wore a blue uniform. A gaping burn hole in his back marred the blood-soaked and dirty uniform, steadily dripping blue ectoplasm into the mud. _

_Hundreds more just like that lay on the battlefield, all of them dead or dying. Twisted, mangled, and disemboweled corpses, Guys in White and ghosts alike, covered the entire place. Some even appeared to have been crushed by falling rocks from the walls up above. The ghosts all seemed to wear three different colors of uniforms; most wore either blue or red, but a few seemed, even in death, to proudly display their green clothes._

"_What _happened_ here?" Danny murmured, gaping in horror at the tangled mass of corpses. _

_Suddenly, a small jingling noise behind him broke Danny out of his stupor. The halfa whirled around in surprise, ready to strike at some random, dying GIW agent. But instead, he came face to face with someone who, at first glance, he thought was a ghost. He wore a blue uniform similar to that of the others, and his skin had a very, very faint greenish tinge, but a long, deep cut running diagonally across his face, and the red blood pouring out of it betrayed his identity as human. His short, messy black hair was matted down with dirt, blood, and ectoplasm. _

_The young man was on his knees before him, bound in chains; that was the jingling Danny heard. Staring up at him with an unwavering gaze from pitch black, soulless eyes, he asked steadily, "Would you really kill me?" _

_Danny was suddenly clutching the hilt of an ice sword, the tip of the blade dripping with the young man's blood. The halfa found himself unable to move; he just stared. "I..." _

"_Would you really? Even after all that I've done?" That voice sounded so familiar...Danny couldn't quite place it. He thought he had heard it at least a few times...yet he couldn't pick out the owner. _

"_Would you be able put the blood of one more on your hands, even if it's mine?" Still, the halfa couldn't answer, only stare. _

_Thoughts and visions suddenly swirled through his mind as he figured out who exactly he was standing in front of. His eyes widened in realization when name finally came to his mind. "Operative N..." He breathed. _

_Still, the GIW agent's face remained passive. "Would you, Danny Phantom?"

* * *

_

_Stupid alarm clock..._

Danny awoke to the familiar sound of his alarm clock blaring right in his ear. 6:30 AM flashed across the screen in bright red, digital numbers, declaring the time.

After a few seconds, he forced himself to reach across the short span to his night table and shut the thing off. The obnoxious noise ceased, but the halfa's ears continued to ring in the sudden silence. Soon, all thoughts of his dream left his mind, not to be remembered for a long time.

Grunting, Danny hauled himself out of bed, shutting his eyes out against the blinding sunlight streaking through the window. Once he reached his dresser, the halfa started to open his drawer and pull out his signature T-shirt, but thought better of it, glancing nervously at the many scars adorning his arms.

Instead, he dug around in the back of his dresser and located a black turtleneck. He put it on, thankful that not only did it fit him, but also concealed the thick, dark red line on his neck that the collar had left behind. It also hid the similar scars on his wrists.

After donning a pair of jeans and socks, Danny exited his room for the bathroom, thankful that Jazz wasn't there anymore to try and kick him out.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror, wondering how the heck he was supposed to hide the color of his left eye. Danny vaguely thought of contacts, but realized he had none.

Pushing the problem to the back of his mind, he concentrated on more pressing matters, like making sure that no other scars were visible behind his clothes.

Finally satisfied, Danny left the bathroom and made his way downstairs, to be greeted by the sight of Jack devouring pancakes as fast as Maddie could make them. For the first time since that fateful day the two ghost hunting parents had charged out the door in order to capture Danny, the couple actually seemed cheerful.

Haku stood leaning against the wall, sharpening one of his senbon with a small whetstone. He was calmly ignoring the strange sight before him, intent on his work. At the sound of his master's approach, the ghost looked up.

"Good morning." Danny greeted the three of them, faking a cheerful voice and rubbing the back of his neck absently.

"Oh, hi sweetie!" Maddie replied, trying to pretend the last four months never happened. She took the load of pancakes she was about to hand to Jack and shoveled them onto a plate for Danny. "Here you go, Danny."

"Thanks." The halfa grinned, continuing to fake it. He sat down in front of Haku and picked up his fork hungrily, careful to keep his act up. The ghost behind him remained stoic, having instantly seen through the halfa's sham. He could also tell that Maddie was pretending, but said nothing about it.

A few minutes passed before anyone else spoke. While Danny was inhaling his pancakes, Maddie's act soon wore thin. Her smile disappeared, and her shoulders sagged as she turned off the burner and began cleaning the frying pan.

"Danny..." The ghost-hunting parent began, knowing what she was about to say wouldn't be easy.

"Yeah, I know." He started to count on his fingers. "No ghost powers at school, no starting fights, and no showing off, right?" Danny replied, grinning.

"Eh...Yes. Just don't get into trouble and you'll be fine." Maddie inwardly sighed, somewhat thankful that her son had changed the subject. She also sighed because now she couldn't say what was on her mind.

Meanwhile, Jack had been quietly munching on his pancakes, but now that his supply was gone, he spoke up. "Uh, son, I, uh..." He trailed off, not knowing what to say. The fact that Haku was glaring at him didn't help. "Eh...never mind."

"Um...Okay..." Danny glanced up at the clock. "Eh...I should be going..." He rose from his chair and, grabbing his backpack and jacket on the way, was heading for the door when Haku started to follow.

The halfa turned around and addressed him. "What are you doing?"

"Coming with you." The ghost answered, taking a step forward.

"Oh no, you're staying _here_." He pointed to floor.

Ordinarily, Haku would have obeyed without question, but his time with the Guys in White had made him paranoid. "Why?" The word escaped his mouth before he could stop it. By then, it was too late. He expected Danny to lash out at his disobedience, but instead he was met with a blank stare.

"Well..." Danny's eyes shifted from place to place trying to think up an excuse. Unable to find a good enough answer, and not knowing he didn't _have_ to answer, the halfa gave in. "Fine, you can come." He answered reluctantly, turning back to the door. "But _stay invisible_."

"Yes, master." The ghost obliged, vanishing.

"_My name is not_...ah, forget it." Danny mumbled, pulling the door shut behind him.

* * *

"You _sure_ you want to do this?" Tucker asked the halfa, while they were still a block away from Casper High.

"You could just not show up, if you don't want to..." Sam advised.

Danny sighed in response. "I'm gonna have to face the facts sooner or later, so it might as well be today."

The trio continued walking until they arrived at the high school. "Besides—" Danny quickly added as he stepped through the front doors. Instantly, all conversations in the hall ceased. "—how bad can it be?" He immediately regretted saying that, and suddenly realized exactly how many people were staring at him.

The halfa bowed his head, trying to keep his left eye out of sight. All around him, students were whispering, murmuring rumors pertaining to the halfa. Sam laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and he looked up just in time to see Dash and the rest of the football team barreling down the hallway toward the trio.

"Hey Fenturd!" Dash called out. "Where've _you _been? Hiding like the ghost you are?" The jock spat, towering over Danny.

"No, Dash. I've just spent the last four months in a government facility being tortured and experimented on. Now would you please step aside? I need to get to class." The halfa replied in a bored tone, hoping to show Haku that he had the situation under control so he wouldn't do anything...stupid. Unfortunately, the ghost didn't get the message.

He materialized in between the two teens, his arms crossed. Three needles lay in between his right fingers, hidden behind his cloak's red fabric. A glare was fixed on his face. "Do you have any business with...Danny?" The ghost quickly remembered not to call the halfa 'master'.

Instead of running, as he expected, Dash and the other jocks burst out laughing. Wiping a nonexistent tear from his eye, Dash said, "So, who's your new bodyguard? _Little Red Riding Hood_?" Danny slapped his forehead and mentally groaned.

Thankfully, Haku had no idea whatsoever who Little Red Riding Hood was. However, he got the implication the jock was trying to insult him. He growled under his breath, taking a step forward. Danny, knowing this wouldn't end well, laid a restraining hand on the ghost's shoulder.

The halfa leaned forward and whispered into the ghost's ear, "Just don't kill him, knock him unconscious, or cause any permanent damage." _Well, aside from embarrassment_... He added quickly before letting go.

However, with impeccable timing, Mr. Lancer chose that time to come running down the halls. "_Atlas Shrugged_, what's going on here?"

Danny immediately clasped his hand around Haku's arm and turned him invisible.

"Well, uh, Mr. Lancer..." Dash tried to explain. "There was, uh, a, uh, ghost, and—"

"I can see that, Mr. Baxter." The overweight teacher countered, eying Danny carefully. "And you, Mr. Fenton, I should expect better from _you_." He then turned to the crowd of onlookers. "Get to class! All of you!"

* * *

The rest of the day seemed to pass without incident, with all the other jocks staying very far away from Danny. He didn't see any sign of Valerie; the most he saw was a flash of hair in the hallway, right before she ducked into one of her classes. A few students inquired about his eye, but he tried to avoid their questions.

At long last, the final bell rang, signaling to everyone that school was out for the day. While the other students hurried out of the room, Mr. Lancer asked Danny to wait.

Once everyone else had exited, the teacher closed the door, sighing. He slumped down into his chair and leaned forward, facing the young halfa. "Danny, what's wrong?"

"Uh...Nothing's wrong. I'm just...adjusting?" Of course he was lying through his teeth, and Mr. Lancer knew it.

"Look, I know what you went through was...hard, and I think you need some help—"

"_Hard_? Is _that _how you're describing it now?" He didn't know what came over him. The entire day, he had kept silent and avoided any questions. But suddenly... he lowered his voice and leaned forward, "_Hard _wouldn't even begin to describe what they did to me..." his voice was seething with inexplicable rage. He dimly thought he was overreacting, but he didn't care.

"I'm just trying to say that you should talk to someone - "

"I should _talk_ to someone?" Enraged, Danny slammed his books down onto a nearby desk, turned his back to the teacher, and lifted up his shirt, exposing the hundreds of scars underneath it. By now, several students were outside the door, staring in horrified fascination at the scene. One of them included Valerie, who couldn't bear to look away. "So how would you like for me to _talk_ about_ this_?"

"_Hound of the Baskervilles_..." Mr. Lancer's hand went instinctively to his mouth as he stared, his eyes wide in shock. "I...I had no idea..."

"Of course you didn't." The halfa responded indignantly, pulling his shirt back into place. Picking up his books, he walked toward the door. "Can I go now?" he asked nonchalantly, as if their conversation never happened. But before the middle-aged teacher could respond, however, he was already out the door.

He was faintly aware of a voice at the back of his mind telling him he was out of line. But he still didn't care.

All of the shocked students parted, allowing him to walk through the growing crowd. Danny ignored all of them, of course. He didn't even notice Valerie through his mind's rage-induced haze. And by the time Valerie got up the courage to talk, he was already gone.

* * *

"I'm home!" Danny called as he entered Fentonworks.

"Hey Danny...!" Maddie's voice echoed up from the basement. "Could you give us a hand down here for a minute?"

"Okay!" The halfa answered back, dropping his backpack and hanging up his jacket. He clamored down the stairs, Haku—now visible—trailing behind.

Once Danny reached the bottom, he said, "What do you need me to—" He stopped dead, staring wide-eyed at the sight before him.

Currently, his parents were trying to haul a wildly struggling ghost out of its cage. A very scary-looking machine was placed along the wall, prepared for use.

"Could you please gives us some help, son?" Jack bellowed after being whacked in the face by the young ghost. "Oh, you're a fighter!"

After hearing no answer, both parents turned to their half-ghost child. "Son?" Jack repeated. Even the ghost turned its head toward the halfa, its eyes wild and unseeing.

Danny was stopped in his tracks, his mouth gaping at his ghost-hunting parents. Finally, his face brightened as he bolted forward, a single name on his lips.

"Toph!"

* * *

Well, there's another evil cliffie for ya! Although, you can _probably_ guess what's gonna happen next...

Personally, I have no clue when I'll next update, however, so, let's just hope I can get it done soon... The next one's gonna be sort of a filler chapter, so I don't really know where to start...

Again, ideas on Op. N's identity are still being accepted! If you get it right, you'll get a preview of the chapter! Keep guessing!


	15. Chapter 15

_*Chapter edited September 6, 2010

* * *

_

I know. There is absolutely _no excuse whatsoever_ to explain why I haven't updated for a _year_, but… high school sucks. And on top of that, throw in the worst case of Writer's Block I've _ever_ had, and you get no update for a year. It's a pathetic excuse, I know, but it's the truth. I'm not canceling this thing, however! Through thick and thin, I _will _finish this! ...Even if it takes me X number of months/years, I don't think my conscience would let me delete this thing. (Sigh) This isn't my longest chapter, but I think I've cleared the worst of the filler. Hopefully. I have a tendency to think I'm almost done, and then keep adding important - if nitpickey - things to make it longer...

Anyways, since I'm clearly boring you all, on with the story!

Disclaimer: I don't own DP, Naruto, or Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Chapter Fifteen: Respite

"Wait, wait, wait. Run that by me again." Maddie demanded, gesturing to Toph. "This- this _ghost_ was your _cellmate_?"

Danny absently rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, yeah..." the halfa explained. "It's...kind of a long story, though..."

While he was trying to come up with an explanation, Toph sent the halfa a look that was somehow a cross between a plead and a glare from behind the bars of her cage.

"I...well..."

"Does it even matter?" The words were out of Haku's mouth before he could stop them. Again. "I-I mean..." He tried to recover. "Th- the way I see it, the _least_ you could do is...let her go?" The ghost winced, edging toward the stairs.

Danny's brow furrowed, turning to the ninja, then back to his parents. "He's right, you know." He tilted his head up to them, the halfa's yellow eye staring straight at the ghost hunting couple, reminding them painfully of what they did to him.

Jack cringed under the piercing gaze. Now it was his turn to stammer. "I— well— uh..."

"You're right!" Maddie finished hastily, shoving Jack past Haku to the stairs, following close behind.

"She still would've made a great experiment..." He mumbled in protest, but was quickly silenced by a glare from his wife.

Once the two had left, the halfa turned to Haku. The ghost braced himself, but the yelling that would normally have followed him disobeying an order in his past life never came. Curious, he opened his eyes to find Danny smiling at him.

The halfa laid a hand on the ghost's shoulder. "Thanks. I don't think I could've talked my way out of that."

"Uh...you're...welcome?" He answered, straightening, relief flooding his features. A few seconds of silence followed.

"You know, I'd hate to interrupt this _touching_ moment," Toph interjected sarcastically, "but could you _get me outa this freakin' cage_?" She screeched, rattling the ghost-proof bars.

"Alright, alright." Danny grabbed the keys off a nearby table. "Thirty seconds that important to you?"

"Yes." She replied dryly.

Danny chuckled and shook his head. He jammed the key into the lock and opened the door. The young earthbender slid out the opening, grateful to be free of the tiny enclosure.

"Ah, that's better." She stretched, moving her arms freely for the first time in months. She tilted her head towards the stairs. "So...those were your parents?"

"...Yeah." Danny answered, unintended steel entering his tone.

Sensing he didn't want to talk about it, she changed the subject. "So do you have any idea why the Guys in White let us go?"

The halfa shrugged. "Don't look at me- I don't have a clue." Although, now that he thought about it, he really _didn't_ know what his parents did. "I think they just struck a deal with them. I don't really know past that...no 'why's or 'how's." He scratched his head. "Does it matter?"

"No, not really. But every bargain comes with a price. And as much as the Guys in White wanted you for a lab rat, why would they trade it all away four months later, along with us? It just all seems kinda fishy to me."

"I don't know. I'll ask them tonight, if they're in the mood to talk."

A few moments of silence passed between them.

"So...I'm guessing you want to stay here, given that you haven't left yet?" Danny inquired.

Toph blinked. "Oh, you wanted me to leave? I can go, if you..."

"No, that's alright," Danny shook his head. "although, I doubt you want to say down here in the lab..."

"Eh, good point." She agreed. "But...where else can I go?" A strange sense of déja vu passed over her as she said those words... the young ghost shrugged it off.

"Well... we don't have a guest room, and I doubt you'd want to sleep in Jazz's room..." The halfa answered, taking hold of her arm. "C'mon, I'll show you around town, see if there's some abandoned warehouse you can stay in..." He transformed into his ghost half, and was about to phase the both of them up through the ceiling, when he noticed Haku staring at him. "What?"

Haku blinked, "...Nothing." _Did I just see...? No, it couldn't have... _He shook his head. "Nevermind."

"Uh, okay." Danny turned away from the ninja, took Toph's arm, and phased the both of them up through the ceiling, leaving Haku alone in the lab.

He stared up at the spot they had vanished through, wondering if his eyes had played a trick on him. While he briefly wondered if all those sedatives had done something to his mind, a thought occurred to him. "Didn't those two say that girl was _blind_?" He asked the empty room, before following his 'master' up through the floors.

* * *

Sheila quietly sat at her desk, concentrating intensely at the pages laid out in front of her. The soft tapping of a Braille stylus into the thick paper resounded throughout the room, steady and monotone. Occasionally, she would turn the page over and run her fingers over what she had just wrote, either frowning and rubbing a part out, or continuing on.

Suddenly, she pushed aside her writing tools, gathered up all the pages, and read the whole thing through, mouthing the words as she went. After a few small changes, she turned her attention to the small, ice blue gryphon sleeping at the edge of the bed.

"Gyl!" She exclaimed, making the ghost wake with a start. "It's done!" She held out the small stack of pages.

_Really? You finally finished that thing?_ The small ghost uncurled from his spot, stretching.

"Yup!" Sheila rested the stack in front of him on the bed sheets. "All done!"

The creature leaned over the papers, carefully decoding the complex system of dot clusters.

_Wow. This is really great! _He looked up from the last page.

"Of course it is! I spent what? Two months on it?" Sheila wondered, gathering up the pages and putting them back on her desk. "Although, I know better than to show this to mom and dad. Remember the _last_ time I showed one of these to them?"

_I'd...Rather not think about it. _

"Me neither..." She shuddered at the memory, including the creepy trauma therapist they had sent her to.

_So...What do you want to do now?_

Sheila thought for a moment, leaning back in her chair. "I don't know...Want to go for a flight?"

_Sure!_ Gyl sprang up from the bed, landing on the carpet with a soft _plunk_. He slowly sucked in a breath, and transformed into a larger, more mature-looking member of his species.

At his full size, the ghost nearly filled up the tiny room. Sheila clamored up onto his back, situating herself in front of his wings.

With one leap, Gyl phased the two of them through the far wall, out into the open air beyond. Unfolding his huge wings, the gryphon down stroked, barely avoiding a collision with the hard pavement below. A few more powerful flaps brought them above the level of the buildings. A gust of wind soon had them rising higher and higher into the sky, until they were just below the line of thick, gray clouds that had remained from yesterday.

Sheila cried out in joy, feeling the wind toss her hair this way and that, its icy grip already beginning to numb her bare hands and ears. Gyl continued to pump his wings, the wind pushing them along, faster and faster.

Adrenaline flooded Sheila's veins as the gryphon went into a spiraling dive, the chill late October air flooding against her face. A giggle of joy came up from her throat, cut off by the ghost's sudden ascent. As he leveled out, she found the breath to ask, "When was the last time we did this, Gyl?"

_I don't know. Does it matter?_

"Nope!"

They flew on through the heavily overcast day, weaving in and out between buildings, much to the amazement of a few townspeople on the ground, and the annoyance the two of them caused three patrolling GIW officers. They glanced among each other, then proceeded the reach for their ecto-guns.

Gyl eyed them suspiciously, and before they could shoot, he quickly altered his course to the relative seclusion of the park.

"What's wrong?" Sheila, sensing his discomfort, asked.

_...Nothing. Just...let's stop here. I need to rest._ He landed on the edge of a clearing, allowed his companion to dismount, then immediately curled up in the grass.

"...Okay." The young girl settled down next to him, using one of his wings as a pillow. Pulling the folds of her jacket in closer, she thought, _A little cold for October..._She snuggled deeper into the ghost feathers, briefly noticing the icy energy radiating from them. _Although I don't think Gyl here is helping much…_

_I heard that!

* * *

_

"Should we _really _be out here?"

"Ah, lighten up, Haku! We're fine," Danny assured the ghost, lying in the grass a few feet away. "Besides, no one's out here but us."

Haku walked over from the underbrush. "You don't know that. Someone could be watching us right now!"

Toph appeared behind him. "Yeah, _me_. If you won't believe him, then take _my_ word for it. There is no one here but us."

He whirled around. "And how do _you _know that?"

She gazed at him, her unseeing eyes seeming to pierce right through him. And as she stared, her features changed. Her already blank eyes seemed to glaze over even more, as if her mind was elsewhere. Finally, she said, "There are a total of seven people in the vicinity of this entire park, consisting of a young couple, two bikers, and us. The couple is on the other end of the park, while the bikers are following a path leading away from us. Happy?" Not wanting to admit she was wrong, however, she conveniently 'forgot' to mention a certain girl dosing in the next clearing over.

Haku's brow furrowed, slightly suspicious. "How did you…?"

Toph blinked, her eyes flickering back to normal. "I'm an earthbender, remember? I can feel vibrations in the earth, and...I know where everything is. Anything touching the ground, or made of stone...I can sense." She turned away from him. "However...now... I can sense ghosts, too. You... I don't know how to explain it. I feel... energy. An aura, maybe. Who knows."

Toph turned back to him. "But the point is, we're alone. So lighten up, Twinkle Toes!" She smiled and patted him on the shoulder, briefly wondering why she just called him Aang's old pet name. The earthbender shrugged it off again, then grabbed Haku's arm and started to drag him out into the clearing. "I need a sparring partner anyhow."

* * *

_Crash._

Gyl stirred at the booming sound, not more than a couple hundred yards away. Sheila was already on her feet, her head jerking back and forth, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. Fear was evident in her eyes, and the goose bumps on her arms weren't from the chill air.

"What is it, Gyl?" Her voice trembled. Though almost a teenager, she had her moments.

_I don't know, but let's get out of here!_ But before Gyl could move a muscle, another crash resounded through the forest, followed by a red-cloaked figure barreling through the trees, straight at his companion. _Sheila!_

The next thing she new, Sheila was lying on the ground, staring into the rather surprised face of…Haku.

* * *

Okay, I'm cutting it off there. I know. I'm heartless. It's also 1:15 in the morning. G'night.

But before I go... Any more guesses for Op. N? Although I think it's gettin kind of old by now...

Oh, what about what Haku 'saw'? I _almost_ put it in here, but I decided to keep it a mystery...for now.

Hopefully, I'll see y'all again in less than a year...


	16. Chapter 16

…Hi. Again. After a year. (sigh) I'm such a wimp. And an idiot. I _could_ spill my guts with all the excuses I have for not updating (TvTropes ate my brain, mostly) but I know most of you don't want to hear it.

The first summer after I started this thing, I intended to finish it over the next couple of months. Unfortunately, distraction brought on by Kingdom Hearts I&II and TvTropes threw a rock in my plans, and a newly acquired sense of Genre Savviness made me realize what a _seriously_ messed up story I had just made. ...And I realized that I was a member of the DP FanDumb…oh God… I'll never stop cringing for that... After that, I was too scared to even go near the thing for nearly a year, when a momentary sugar high made me write and post Chapter 15.

The first review I received for this story said, "Not bad so far, can't wait 'til the crap hits the fan though." I guess it has (understatement). But I've made you wait for this long enough, and you all deserve to hear the ending; I can give that much.

Anyway...Let's see... where to start? This is probably going to sound kind of stupid at this speed, but here goes... (takes a deep breath):

This is as far as I got with Chapter 16:

_Toph let out a howling cackle. "World's fastest ghost, huh?" She stepped out of the underbrush, and made her way to the two._

_By this time, Sheila had already pushed off a very stunned Haku and was scrambling wildly to find her companion. _

There was supposed to be this whole long spiel for about a chapter where Toph tries to teach Sheila earthbending (in exchange for Sheila teaching Toph how to read Braille (cliché as hell!)), where the GIW come along after a bit and basically say, "Oh, no, you're not allowed to do that or else we're hauling your butt back to the experimental facility yadda yadda yadda..." I didn't really get too far on thinking about that, but it was supposed to, you know, make them seem more evil or something.

Meanwhile, Vlad has been hiding out in the Ghost Zone for the last few months (and being really pissed off about it too) along with all the other ghosts, because the GIW have pretty much rounded up any ghost stupid enough to venture out into the real world (the Box Ghost, for one...) I was going to put in a short scene where they were all gathered and talking about what to do (this is as far as I got):

"_Order! Order!" Walker slammed his mallet onto the table in front of him. "I said __quiet__!" _

_Eventually the din of hundreds – if not thousands – of ghosts' voices hushed._

"Now_!" The warden addressed the crowd, "I know that the last few months have been… __aggravating__," With the Guys in White making any pillaging out in the real world practically suicidal, fights had been breaking out all over the Ghost Zone. It seemed that a feeling of tension had settled over the realm, ready to snap at even the slightest argument. _

"Aggravating_!__" Vlad shouted from the middle row, rising from his seat. "The Guys in White practically destroyed my house trying to get to me, and you call that _aggravating_!" _

_

* * *

_At some point once Danny heads home, Jack and Maddie inform him as to what exactly the "documents" were that they had traded to the GIW. They were, you guessed it, the schematics to the ghost portal. Well, Danny panics, and heads straight to Clockwork (with Haku in tow, of course) where Clockwork tells them the whole destiny spiel and how Danny's supposed to be the savior of the Ghost Zone yadda yadda yadda, and that he has to make all the ghosts in the Ghost Zone stop fighting with each other and unite against the GIW.

Of course, when Danny tracks down Vlad and tells him this, he's not convinced. So, they decide that Vlad would lead all the evil ghosts, and Danny would lead everyone else. However, Toph and Sheila (who is revealed to be quite the earthbender, man did I make her a Mary Sue or what?) want to help too. It's eventually decided that Toph would lead any earthbending ghosts lying around the ghost zone (dumping ground for souls from all the dimensions, so, yes there would be earthbenders. And waterbenders. And ninjas.), Danny and Haku would lead any waterbenders (eh, the with the whole 'ice powers and from the village of mist' it all kinda made sense at the time) or ninjas willing the follow them, and Vlad would lead, well, all the evil ghosts. They were even supposed to have color coded uniforms...

Unfortunately, the Guys in White catch wind of this plan. I was going to have this scene where all the operatives in Amity Park are conversing as to what to do about it, and they eventually decide to send in a spy. And who do they pick? You guessed it, Operative N. So then the head Operative called in his two nieces, who answer, "Of course we'll make him look like a ghost, Uncle Boris!" At which the entire room erupts in laughter, until the Head Operative threatens to fire everyone. Anyway, they make Op. N look like a ghost, with special makeup that won't wash away and red tinted contacts. Also, in addition to that, they arrest Sam and Tucker and hold them hostage, to try and persuade Danny to call off the rebellion, "Or else they die." Also quite cliche.

So then Op. N sneaks into the Ghost Zone (with the help of some GIW technology to make him go intangible, invisible, and some prototype jet-shoes to make him fly), finds Danny, and asks if he could join them. Danny asks him his name, and it was going to be at the last line of the chapter, where he answers, "Inari." And oooh, you find out his name and all that and it was supposed to be really dramatic and stuff.

I was going to choose this point to really explain some of Inari's backstory as to how he ended up in the DP dimension. When you last hear about him into the Naruto series, he's realized that he's stronger now, and not some wimpy, whiny little kid (of about 11 or 12 years old). Now, I played around with this a bit, and figured he'd learn how to fight (with two scimitar-like swords. The entire reason the other operatives picked him was because he could use a weapon other than ecto-guns). I figured that when he was around 17 or so, he was out in the woods, and a portal to the Ghost Zone opened up, and he stepped inside it (idiot). A few minutes later, a portal to the DP world opened, and suddenly he has to fend for himself, until the GIW take him in. This was why he hated ghosts so much ("If it wasn't for that damn Ghost Zone I would still be home...") And, he also hated Danny so much because he was the reincarnation of Zabuza, who worked for the guy who had his father publicly executed. Now, since this fic was set about 17 years after Zabuza's and Haku's deaths, he's now about 28 or 29.

And so, a plan is devised among the ghosts. They calculated where the GIW portal would appear in the Ghost Zone, and they had the earthbenders build a sort of canyon around it. When the first wave of people entered, everyone would throw boulders and hot oil etc. at them, killing the first wave. I hadn't really given much thought to how the rest of the battle would go, but more stuff would happen which I will now go into detail with...

As the "canyon" is being 'constructed', Inari infiltrates the army after the brief introduction with Danny. This was going to take up an entire chapter, filled with Danny looking at him suspiciously, wondering why he looks oh so familiar, and Inari leaking some information to the GIW. However, toward the middle of the chapter, Inari sits down with a few other ghosts on break, and they're all telling stories about what the GIW have done to them and/or others they knew. I was even going to put in a quote along the lines of, "Oh, and from what I've heard, that Operative N is the worst. He's bat-shit insane, I tell you. I heard, that out of the whole lot, he's the only one who takes _pleasure_ in torturing us." "I hope he's one of the first they send in, so we can crush the bastard." Oh, and I just remembered that I was going to have Inari's father even be in the group (not sure what I was going to do with that, though... I think Inari would be torn up inside because he knew he couldn't reveal his true identity) Oh, now I remember, Inari's father was going to say to him at some point, "Hmm, I had a son once, when I was still alive. His name was Inari, too..."

After that, Inari walks away, and starts to think _Oh, maybe I really shouldn't have done that to these people..._ and starts turning good; again cliche. Then he proceeds to go double-agent on the GIW and feed them false information up until the battle.

Ah, the battle scene. This was going to take up two or maybe even three chapters. Well, the first wave dies as planned (crushed to death) however the second wave comes in on jetpacks, so then everything turns into hand-to-hand fighting. During this, Sheila gets stabbed by a random operative and dies T_T. Gyl then goes into a homicidal rampage, killing that operative and many, many more...

At some point, two random operatives sneak up on Danny, clamp on an ectoranium shackle, and are about to kill him, when Inari shows up. He says to the two, "Hey, don't shoot, it's me." And stabs them both in the back with his swords. He releases Danny, and Danny's about to thank him, when he notices a small cut on his eyebrow, which was leaking _red human blood_. Suddenly Danny realized why he had looked so familiar, and orders him taken prisoner, with Inari doing the whole "No, I'm on your side! I've changed!" spiel as he's being dragged away. Oh, poor him.

So, as the battle drags on, the ghosts manage to get into the GIW facility itself, and Danny rescues Sam, Tucker, and Danielle (who at this point is on the verge of death). The ghosts win, and all the remaining operatives (including the Head Operative) are sent to Walker's prison to be tortured/maimed/starved etc. etc. Inari manages to convince Danny that he's good now after a "Please forgive me." "Not yet. Oh..._sweet revenge_." moment... In the midst of the celebration, Sheila appears (now a ghost): "Aw! I missed the best part! I woke up somewhere off that way and it took me hours to find my way back here," much to Gyl's happiness.

And... all that's left is the epilogue. Valerie (remember that whole thing where she saved Joey from the GIW?) well, she tells Danny about it, and there's a happy reunion between Joey, Sheila, and their parents. (Man, poor parents; now _both_ their children are dead). Meanwhile, Toph, Gyl, Haku, Danny, Sam, and Tucker are standing off to the sidelines, watching. After the family does a group hug, Sheila walks over, says "I'm ready." and she and Toph mount Gyl. Before they take off, Danny asks, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Toph answers, "Well, you still haven't finished your training..." Meanwhile, Haku is staring forlornly at Toph. Danny notices, walks over, and asks, "You love her, don't you?" "...yes." (Yes, you did just read that. I made Haku fall in love with Toph. So sue me. Again, it made sense at the time.) "Then go with them." "But... they wouldn't... Master, I - " "That's an order." So he gets on with them, and they fly off into the sunset... (presumably for the wilderness and/or mountains of Canada).

And that's pretty much how it ends. Yup. That's it. (sigh) It feels so nice to get this off my chest. _For two years_, this has been in the back of my mind, but now I can move on to other things, finally. I hope you enjoyed the ending!

While typing the below paragraph, I reread all of your reviews, and I realized just how much some of you liked this thing! Infinite thank yous!

Thank you to (in no particular order) Arcy911913, MusicIsMyMorphine, Luiz4200, starr1095, papercliped-angel, "Ookami Kitsune", Ndasuunye, darthgamer, SpiritMusician, Piece of Toast, Adriannrod Svit-Kona Samm, darkangelwp05, inukagome15, Damus Daemon Dragon, Darkfire-Lady of Darkness, cartoon-crazy987, iHugBears, Dragongal333, ShadowShapeshifterAndHerCat, Silver Shadowbreeze, Thunderstorm101, "bloodmoon13", MahiMahi718, ThunderRiver411, Coppa-Cola, Reyes Yong Nydia, Miss Captain-Mad Dog Vane, The Anonymous PenName, "the sue", Hikari1994, Alarose, Horselvr4evr123, Demon Evangelion, Sable Katze, ZWig, "Anonymous Shadow", Quick-Demon, Aerieth, Devil-Speaker, "~Kat", Funabisenu, "Shinchibi", crimsonshrouds, unlovedpacifist, boo56, LocoLycan, Blue Beluga, and FreezeFlame666 for all the reviews!

And _especially _thanks to Luiz4200, boo56, Thunderstorm101, Horselvr4evr123, ZWig, and The Anonymous PenName for all your wonderful criticism throughout this story! You guys get lots and lots of virtual cookies. And _really really really _thanks to Ndasuunye, for probably giving me the most valuable criticism I've ever gotten.

...And to the 284 of you who read all the way to chapter 15, but didn't review!

I'm never going to forget this series, and I hope none of you do either. I'll always remember the lovable halfa who had the unfortunate tendency to get tortured by various fanfic writers with too much spare time. And everything else that made this show great. Before I can move on to anything else, I needed to get this off my chest. I really have no way to thank every single one of you (even though you're all strangers technically) for sticking with me and this fic!

Good luck to all of you on any future stories! I can't think of anything else to say at this point, so I guess I'll go...

_~ShadowLord9~_


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